


The Other Side

by RiverWriter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Friendship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Interdimensional Travel, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24402637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverWriter/pseuds/RiverWriter
Summary: Harry Potter had never had a true friend. He’d been to war, to hell and back but he'd survived. And then he found a magical object that transported him to a dimension where a woman who might have been a real friend did exist. The problem was that all she saw when she looked at him was her dead best friend.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 175
Kudos: 532
Collections: Prompt Bank Garage Sale





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [HarmonyandCo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonyandCo/pseuds/HarmonyandCo) in the [PromptBankGarageSale](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PromptBankGarageSale) collection. 



> This is the prompt that started this fic as a part of Harmony & Co's Facebook Group's Garage Sale. I would love to give the prompter credit but they've decide to remain anonymous. If you're out there let me know, your idea got my creative juices flowing and I'm very grateful:
> 
> Harry lives in a world where Hermione either died or has never existed. He’s lived his entire life by himself. He finds a magical object that transports him to a dimension where Hermione does exist.

_**"At the risk of sounding sentimental, I've always felt there are people who can leave an indelible mark on your soul, an imprint that can never be erased."** _

* * *

Chapter 1

Harry Potter sipped at his shot of limoncello. Experience had taught him to avoid anything harder, though he was sorely tempted. But he traded in dangerous artefacts rather than dangerous drugs these days. If he hadn't fought so hard to keep his life, he might be a little more reckless with it, but despite his months of binging post-war, he was doing his best to honor his mother by staying alive.

Well, maybe not his best, but he'd seen what addiction could do to a person and he refused to go out that way.

He'd never really known Lily Potter, nothing beyond the stories that his father and godfather fed him. She was more myth than woman. So, he really didn't know what she would think of his current state of affairs, but his own opinion was that it was probably better to die tracking down interesting artefacts than with an empty potion vial at his side. And he was on the trail of something truly groundbreaking.

Interdemisional travel. Time travel was one thing, but this was on another level. It had a whole other connotation. Harry told himself that he was just doing his job, investigating for the Department of Mysteries, that this wasn't simply about his own curiosity; that he didn't wonder what a different version of himself might have looked like if something had perhaps gone differently on that fateful Halloween night. That he didn't want to meet his mother, even knowing it would be a different iteration of her.

He pushed his worries to the back of his mind. The little voices that were screaming at him that he didn't have a right to dabble in such things

What he'd found was simple enough. As simple as it was beautifully ornate: a Faberge egg. All he had to do was open it. The secrets to the universe- the ones he'd been chasing, were supposed to be contained inside. And if he was truly honest he'd say that if he opened the egg and a black hole opened up, then he might not have necessarily been opposed to the idea of falling into it.

He was conscientious enough to return to Britain and then ensconce himself in his lab at the DoM which was heavily warded and might protect the rest of the Ministry, the rest of the world, from possible magical backlash. Then he opened the egg.

It was not a black hole.

It was a rabbit hole.

But it wasn't a white rabbit who greeted him. It was a younger, skinny, version of himself, who was terribly in need of a haircut, and corrective eye surgery. That Harry beckoned him forward, stating: "come with me, she needs you," and he couldn't stop himself from following.

Suddenly he was back in his lab, except it wasn't exactly his lab. There was a woman standing in the middle of the room looking shocked, which he supposed was an understandable reaction to somebody appearing unexpectedly in front of you, even in the magical world. But then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.

Harry was too far away to catch her before she hit the ground but he did rush over to check on her. He was kneeling beside her, hovering, when she came to. Her eyes went wide and she reached for him, touching his face, tracing his cheek up to his scar. He flinched.

"Harry?"

"Um, hello?'

She blinked once, twice, and burst into tears. Harry sighed. He was not starting things on good footing with this woman. He tried to soothe her but, well, that wasn't really his forte. Seduce yes, soothe no.

"Harry," she repeated, shaking her head violently back and forth, "but not my Harry."

Oh. Well that complicated things.

He backed off to give her some space as she visibly tried to pull herself together, and he got his first good look at her. She was wearing fitted olive green pants tucked into dragon hide boots and a tight black tee-shirt. It was very utilitarian, bordering on military. It certainly wasn't business attire, but then again his Department of Mysteries didn't have a dress code either. The neat outfit was in direct contrast to her hair which was piled haphazardly up on top of her head and looked to be ready to escape at any moment. A brunette, petite and curvy, she was exactly his type. And if he was interpreting her words correctly, some other version of himself felt the same way.

Eventually she began to struggle to her feet. He offered her a hand but she just shook her head.

"Where did you come from?" She asked.

"Well," he considered prevaricating or making something up completely, but in the end he didn't really see the point. He would probably need her help in the immediate future and it seemed like a bad idea to start things off with a lie. "In another dimension this is my lab."

She simply nodded, like he'd just told her the time.

He felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "You're taking this remarkably well."

"I've seen more unbelievable things," she murmured, releasing her hair from its clasp and shaking it out. He watched in fascination as it sprung out, creating a halo of curls surrounding her face. "How did you get here?" She asked, all business.

He barked out a laugh. "Excuse me, but you seem to know me but I don't know you. Do you think I could at least get your name before we start discussing the technical details of my interdimensional travel?"

Her head shot up and her eyes filled with tears again. "You don't know me?"

He shook his head.

"You don't recognize me at all? You've never even met me?" She seemed to be growing a little hysterical.

"Sweetheart, I would definitely remember that."

It was as if he had slapped her. She froze, staring at him in shock, but then she shook herself. "I suppose, well it's obvious that you're different from him, so I guess it stands to reason that we might not have become friends. But we should have at least run into each other at Hogwarts. Did you not attend Hogwarts?"

"I did, Gryffindor."

She gave him a small sad smile. "Us too."

Us.

"I'm sorry, this seems to really be bothering you?" He phrased it as a question, hoping she might elaborate on her own. The news that he'd just jumped worlds hadn't phased her, but the idea that he'd never met his world's version of her had her looking to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"It's just that, I know I'll never get him back but I think that it would have been nice to know that some other version of me has you. Comforting somehow," she shook her head. "Oh well."

He too wished that he had a witch waiting back home who was as desperate for him to come home as this woman was to get her Harry back. However, she'd just confirmed his theory.

"He died?" It wasn't the most tactful thing to say, especially given her obvious distress, but he was just so morbidly curious.

She nodded. "Three years ago now," she answered quietly.

"I'm sorry for your loss. He was your...husband?"

She let out a startled laugh. "No, he was my friend. My very best friend." She sniffled. "Look, this has all been very interesting, and I don't mean any offense, but it's actually painful to look at you. So do you think we can start working out how you got here, so that we can send you home?"

"Uh sure," he said, starting to feel guilty for his curiosity. "But do you think I could at least get your name?"

"Hermione," she twisted her hair back on top of her head as she spoke. "Hermione Granger."

Unusual, pretty, it suited. "Like, from 'A Winter's Tale?'"

She looked at him in shock. "You know it."

"Of course, my mother loved to read so my father made sure that my education in English Literature was very thorough, which I know is unusual for a wizard, but my mother was muggleborn. Oh, but I'm sure you already know that," he babbled. He would later try to figure out why he felt an almost desperate need to connect with this witch. "Hey, does that mean you're muggleborn too?"

She stared at him.

"Hermione? Is that a rude question here or something?"

"Your dad?" She finally squeaked.

"Yeah. Is he as big of a pain in the arse here as mine is?" He rolled his eyes. "Does he flirt with you?"

"It's just that you have the scar too," she whispered, "I assumed."

"Yes," he said carefully. "I saw you recognize it, that's why I assumed our circumstances were the same in that instance."

She shook her head and sighed, taking a step closer to him, she almost looked like she was going to reach for him, but refrained. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but both of the Potters were killed in Godric's Hollow on Halloween of 1981 by a wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort."

Harry sucked in a breath and clamped down on his occlumency shields, then he calmly shook his head. "Well it seems that in both dimensions Tom Riddle managed to twist himself into that monster, you'd think that would be one thing that could be different. But in my world Dad wasn't even home when he came, he'd gone out to celebrate Halloween with Sirius."

It was a mistake James Potter had nearly drowned himself in a bottle for commiting; leaving his wife and toddler son home alone just for a little relief from cabin fever. It seemed this James had made a different decision and paid for it with his life.

"Oh," she said, "well I am sorry."

He shook his head. "It was a long time ago. And the people in this world, I'm sorry to hear that they died, but they weren't my parents, Hermione."

He thought he said it with considerable composure, but the truth was that he sort of felt like he'd been stabbed in the gut.

* * *

There was a long, awkward pause. This Harry was not her Harry, but he had some of the same tells and she could see that he was much more affected to hear the fate of her world's Potters than he was letting on.

"Shall we go to my office?" She eventually asked.

She was startled when he just nodded, spun on his heel and walked directly towards it; but then she realized that of course he knew where it was. She chose to sit next to him in the chairs in front of her desk, instead of behind it. As much as she wanted to put some space between them, she couldn't seem to actually do it.

She hated him a little bit for doing this to her, for making her think for even one second that she had her Harry back. She'd opened her eyes and seen those unmistakable green ones looking back at her and she thought he'd done it again, defied death and found a way to come back to her. But while the color was the same, they weren't Harry's eyes; they didn't sparkle the way his had, and while they'd been concerned, they held no affection for her in their depths.

Then there were the other differences. He wasn't wearing glasses, his hair was long and pulled back at the nape of his neck the way Sirius used to wear his. He was broader than Harry had been, and every inch of skin she could see of his arms was covered in tattoos. Harry, despite everything he'd been through, had managed to retain a boyish air about him; this man had a darkness to him, an air of danger, though, despite that, he didn't scare Hermione at all.

She turned to him, folding her hands in her lap. "So, I guess you should just tell me what happened. Whatever you think the beginning is."

He rubbed his scruffy jaw. "Right," he seemed to consider that. "Oh! I dropped the thing when you fainted. It must be on the floor in the lab."

"What thing?"

"The artefact that brought me here, I'll go get it." He jumped up and it occurred to her belatedly that maybe she should stop him from touching it lest it activate again and take him away. But he quickly returned carrying what appeared to be a ruby and gold faberge egg.

Gryffindor colors, how apropos.

He set it on the desk in front of them. "I heard rumors about an enchanted object with the capability to transport people between dimensions. I've been working on tracking this down for a couple of years. Three days ago a source contacted me and I went to Naples to pick it up."

"You just went and picked it up, just like that?"

He shrugged. "Well it's not like my source just handed it over in the middle of the street, but yeah."

She shook her head in disbelief.

"I brought it back to my lab and opened it. It was like this tunnel opened up and I followed it here"

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Well what did your research tell you about how it was enchanted and how it operates?"

He shrugged again. "I didn't really do any. Like I said, I just heard the rumors about what it's capable of and started working on finding it."

"You used an object rumored to allow you to jump dimensions without knowing anything about it?"

He glared at her, obviously not liking her tone. Her Harry hadn't liked it when she scolded him like that either. "I have some experience with dangerous magical artefacts."

"Yes," she snapped, "I imagine you do, which is why you should know how reckless and irresponsible that was!" She honestly couldn't believe the nerve of him.

They just stared at each other for several long minutes before he sighed.

"Look, I'll just open it back up and see if it'll take me back and if it doesn't work, we can go from there." He started to reach for it.

"Are you crazy!" He froze. "Listen, you might not care about the repercussions of this brilliant plan to basically fiddle with it until it works," she said sarcastically, "but I do. And we have no idea what they might be! What it could do to this world, to yours? And I, personally, don't want to be accidentally sucked into another dimension. We are going to go about this properly."

"Okay," he agreed quickly. Too quickly, like he'd been hoping she'd say something like that, though she couldn't imagine why.

"Also, I don't think it's going to be as simple as just opening it again, I think there's got to be a more complicated triggering mechanism."

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "I wasn't leaving anything out, that's really all I did."

"Which doesn't mean that your source couldn't have done something to it before he gave it to you, or anybody who might have had it before him. It easily could have been a trap."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed, how had he not given this more consideration? "Is it safe to say that you're famous in your world?"

"Yes."

"That you have enemies who might want to get rid of you?"

"Yes."

"And perhaps you're even known for being a little reckless," she arched an eyebrow at him, but he didn't back down.

He shrugged casually. "I may have something of a reputation."

"So why not just toss you into another world? They didn't even have to be present for the event, you basically did it to yourself, and there's no crime scene or body to clean up."

"Okay, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense," he agreed, beginning to look sheepish.

"Which brings us to another problem."

"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine." He snarked, an unattractive curl to his lip.

She glared at him.

"What is it?" He sighed.

"Normally I'd want to gather a whole team to look into this, but you're Harry Potter."

"I think we've established that."

She kind of wanted to slap him.

"Harry was famous in this world too, everybody knows what he looked like and that he's dead. So many strange, even inexplicable things happened to him during his life. Now all of the sudden we have this dimension traveling version of him. I can't guarantee they won't stick you in a cage and study you like a lab rat the moment you walk out of my office."

He stared at her for a minute, then nodded. "That sounds like something my DoM would do as well." He gave her a sly look and her heart lurched in her chest because she knew this look, it was the same look her Harry had given her any time he was about to try and convince her to do something she wasn't going to like. "I'd really appreciate it if you didn't allow them to do that to me."

Her heart clenched.

Merlin but this roller coaster of emotions was terrible.

She knew that she shouldn't do what she'd already made up her mind to do. It was reckless and irresponsible like she'd just accused him of being. But her Harry was gone, beyond her help. This one was here asking for it. She knew she'd never forgive herself if she didn't give it. Even if it destroyed her fragile psyche in the process.

"Well," she said, "I guess we have to find a way to sneak you out of here then."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The moment they walked into Hermione's flat, she started to second guess herself. When she'd said they needed to find a way to sneak Harry out of the Ministry he'd immediately brandished his invisibility cloak from an inside pocket of his jacket which must have been magically enlarged. Hermione had breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to offer him, her Harry's cloak which was tucked away in her old beaded bag which, even after all these years, she always kept on hand. Not only was that a secret that she wanted to keep, but she wasn't sure that she was ready for the emotional ramifications of loaning it to him.

Making her way through the Ministry, with an invisible Harry clutching her cloak, was a surreal experience. She hesitated before she grabbed his arm to side along apparate them, ignoring the spark of something that passed between them when they touched: recognition, or maybe longing. But she thought she handled it all pretty well until they entered her flat.

Her companion immediately removed his cloak and looked around. "Nice," he complimented her once they landed.

"Thank you," she answered quietly, leading him towards her flat; although part of her wanted to push him right back out the door.

He didn't ask permission before walking into her living room and began to poke around in her bookshelves. Her Harry had done that all the time, but that was because he was so comfortable here, he never would have behaved so casually in a stranger's home.

Actually, this man was being incredibly casual about this whole situation. It was unnerving.

It hurt.

"I don't know what to call you," Hermione blurted.

He spun around to face her again with a laugh. "Well you called me 'Harry' before, it is my name."

"I don't know if I can," she confessed.

That seemed to catch him up short, but his eyes quickly softened in sympathy. "I understand. What would you like to call me? I don't really have a nickname, my name isn't easy to shorten, apparently that's one of the reasons Mum liked it, she absolutely hated being called 'Lil.'"

She ignored him. She didn't want to hear these things, her breath began to catch. "How about just 'Potter,' then?"

He seemed to think about that for a minute. "Okay, a lot of people call me that so I won't have any trouble responding to it. It'll be a little weird for a witch to do it, but that's fine."

"Okay, good, that's settled," she said hurriedly, it was starting to feel like the walls were closing in around her. "If you don't mind I'm going to go take a quick shower and then I'll rustle us up something for dinner. Just, um, relax I guess." She turned to leave the room.

"Hermione," she stopped dead in her tracks, he sounded so much like her Harry when he said her name, and to hear it again in this space where she'd spent so many happy hours with Harry. It was almost too much.

She squeezed her eyes shut and didn't turn around. "Yes?" She croaked.

"Thank you."

She nodded vigorously and then practically ran for the bathroom. She threw up every locking and silencing charm she could think of and then fell to the floor sobbing. She finally managed to crawl into the shower and turn on the water. She sat there letting the spray wash over her as she tried to process what had just happened.

There was a man in her living room who looked like Harry but was so painfully not. Was she being punished? She deserved it, she did, and maybe that was really why she had agreed to help him, some kind of self-flagellation for what had happened to Harry. She'd even invited him into her home for the night until they could make alternate arrangements.

She'd invited a strange man into her home because he looked like her dead best friend. She knew this was not healthy behavior. But then very little of what she'd done for the past three years could be considered healthy.

She washed her hair and forced herself to get out of the shower, lest Potter decide to do something very Harry-like and come check on her, or Merlin forbid, try to get into the bathroom. She really wished her brain would stop making those comparisons. She dressed quickly and just tossed her wet hair into a messy top knot - a decision she knew she would regret in the morning - then she trudged back into the living room.

He was seated on her sofa with his long legs stretched out in front of him, feet propped on her coffee table. He was reading a book but she suspected he wasn't giving it his full attention as he immediately looked up when she walked in.

"Is everything okay?" He asked.

She nodded, shrugged, and then shook her head. "This," she motioned to him, "is just a lot to take in."

He nodded. "I can imagine." Then he licked his lips and looked around like he was searching for something to comment on, finally he held up the book he'd been reading. "This is from the Potter Library."

"Yes," she said quietly, hoping against hope he'd drop it.

"He left you the Potter Library," he said, gesturing around him.

"Yes."

"It's not supposed to leave the family."

Hermione felt her temper flare. "Well there are no Potters left! Would you have preferred it be left to rot, or sold off in lots? He knew I would respect it and take good care of it."

He raised his hands in a sign of surrender. "I was just surprised is all, that's quite a display of trust."

"I told you he was my best friend," she snapped and marched into the kitchen. She was rustling through the cupboards and the refrigerator, realizing she really didn't have any food, when she heard him come up behind her.

"I really didn't mean anything by it."

"It's fine." She inhaled a shaky breath. "I don't have any food here, I haven't been shopping in ages. I was thinking of takeaway? Is that okay?"

"That's fine. You can't grow up with Sirius Black without loving takeaway. I'm surprised you don't know that."

"Hmmm," she answered noncommittally. "How about Chinese?"

"That sounds good, really I'll eat anything."

"Okay," she began digging through her drawers looking for a menu. When she produced one she turned around to see that he was staring at her, an odd look on his face.

"Do you not know Sirius?"

She swallowed convulsively. She did not have the emotional fortitude to discuss Sirius Black with this man who, from what little he'd said, seemed to view the other version of him as a second father.

"Did something happen to him too?" He pressed.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"He's dead too, isn't he?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it!"

"I'm sorry, it's just. I'd like to know if I might see some familiar faces. I'm all alone here."

And that was her limit. She felt her temper snap. Balling her fists at her sides she began to yell at him.

"Well you probably should have thought about that before you stupidly used a dimension jumping magical artefact! That's not my fault. And you just left your family behind! What's the matter with you? My Harry was reckless, but he never would have been that selfish! How could you! All he wanted was a family and you left yours, on what? A lark?"

His expression darkened. "Watch it. You don't know anything about my family or my life."

"And I don't want to know! I just want to send you home and you just keep picking at me!" She reached over and viciously poked his chest. "And another thing, I don't know if you think this is some kind of vacation or something but it's not. Weren't you listening earlier? You can't see anybody!"

"It would be safe to see Sirius, if he were here. He would never turn me in."

"You didn't know this Sirius Black! He was as foolish and reckless as you are, there's no telling how he would have reacted!" She pressed the menu into his chest. "Pick something to eat and I'll order it." She walked past him into the living room, flopped down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands.

He followed her almost immediately. "I'm sorry," he breathed. "I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not...very good with people to be honest."

"That's an understatement," she snorted. "You're worse than he was."

"Oh?"

"He was awkward, but it's like you are incapable of reading emotional cues." Why? Why was she talking about this? She didn't want to tell him this, and yet she kept moving her mouth and the words kept falling out. "At least I hope that's what it is, I hope you're not just that cruel."

"I'm not, I swear." There was an awkward pause. "I don't need a menu, I'll have the kung pao chicken and an order of egg rolls."

"Of course you will," she murmured, because of course that was Harry's most frequent order.

"I really am sorry."

"It's fine, I'll order the food and then maybe we can just sit quietly and watch TV or something. I'm too tired to start any research for your little problem."

"Okay."

They watched mindless sitcoms for the rest of the evening. Hermione retired to bed early but she didn't go to sleep. Instead she lay awake for the rest of the night contemplating the man on her transfigured sofa. She finally drifted off around dawn and woke with a start at the sound of her alarm, she rarely slept all the way until her alarm went off.

She was thankful that she was used to operating on only a couple hours of sleep. She made her way out of her bedroom to the kitchen, pausing to notice that Potter was already up and had transfigured the bed back to a sofa. She came to a startled halt in the doorway to the kitchen and almost turned right back around, for the man in question was standing at her stove, flipping bacon wearing only - what must have been transfigured - pajama pants, and his appearance at that moment wiped away any reminder of her Harry.

He was fit. Not in that silly way that was meant to show off, no, his body was like a weapon she could tell that he knew how to weild. His hair was down and loose around his face, and those tattoos she'd spotted the day before actually spanned from his wrists all the way down both arms and onto his back and chest, which was also littered with scars. And he just looked so comfortable in his own skin. It was surprising, but what actually scared her was the spark of arousal she felt when she caught sight of him.

"How do you like your eggs?" He asked without even glancing up, and she was suddenly certain that he had known the moment she'd left her bedroom. He had an awareness about him that spoke of intense training. She tried not to think about why that might be.

But then it really sunk in what he was doing. She hadn't had bacon or eggs in the refrigerator last night.

"Where did you get that?"

"What?"

"The food."

"Oh, I saw the shop on the corner when we were walking from the apparition point last night so I ran out and picked up a few things."

"Potter!" She shrieked.

"What?" He still hadn't even turned to look at her.

"I'm not sure how much clearer I can be, you can't be seen! You can't just go running around outside. And where did you get money for this?"

He waved her off. "It's fine. I used a glamour. And I had some money on me."

"Some magicals can see through glamours, Potter! And how did you know our money isn't different from yours?"

He finally looked at her and had the nerve to smirk. "Nobody will be seeing through my glamour. And I didn't think about the money, it looked the same to me when you paid the delivery guy last night and it worked just fine. Anyway, it was just down the street, and we're in muggle London, the chances I even passed another magical are slim. It's not like I went traipsing around the Ministry."

"Ugh!" She growled in frustration, she did not have the energy for this. She didn't want to admit it, but he was right, the risk had been minimal and she wasn't sure it was worth the fight. "Just don't do it again." He started to argue and she held up a hand to stop him. "I'm serious. You're the one who asked for my help, if you don't like my rules then you're free to leave and find a solution to your problem all on your own. I'm sticking my neck out for you, the least you can do is respect my wishes."

He deflated. "I'm sorry, I didn't really think about it, I just wanted to do something nice, you know, helpful."

"Merlin, do you think before you do anything?"

She meant it as an insult but he seemed unphased. "Yes and no," he didn't further explain. "Eggs?" He prompted her.

She could only stare at him in disbelief.

"Eggs?" He repeated.

She ran a hand through her hair. "Oh I usually just have coffee, sometimes some muesli."

His face fell and he looked so thoroughly defeated that she actually felt bad.

"I'll eat them if you're cooking though. Fried, please."

"Runny yolk?"

"Of course."

And then another thing occurred to her. "Wait you dressed, went out, then came back and got undressed again?"

He shrugged. "I'm not a big fan of clothes. He turned to her and smirked. "Why, am I making you uncomfortable."

Refusing to give an inch she rolled her eyes. "No, it's just who's not a fan of clothes?"

"Most people I'd say, I mean you wouldn't sleep in what you wear to work, would you."

She stared at him. "Has anybody ever told you you're strange."

"It has been noted, yes."

He turned back to the cooking, and not wanting to just stand there watching him, Hermione made the coffee and they sat down to eat.

"This is good," she finally said after a few minutes of silence. She couldn't cook to save her life.

"Thanks, I like to cook. I guess for most kids it would be a chore, but I used to go to the kitchens and help the elves for fun. Looking back on it I think it freaked them out at first, but then they started teaching me all sorts of things."

Hermione swallowed thickly. Harry had been a good cook too, and he'd grown to like it as an adult, but for him as a child it had been a chore.

"Why do you keep doing that?" She asked.

"What?"

"Telling me things about yourself."

He took a sip of coffee and eyed her. "Well, I know I said I wasn't especially good with people but isn't that how you usually get to know somebody?"

"Why would we want to get to know each other?"

He sighed. "Look, I know what you said yesterday, and I really am sorry that it's hard for you to have me here, but if you're not going to let me experiment on the artefact I'm presumably going to be here for a little while—"

She set her coffee cup down with a bang. "Wait. You're blaming me for—"

"No." He interrupted firmly. "I'm not blaming you for anything. I just meant that it looks like I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future, because despite what you obviously think, I'm not completely inept, and I know that the scope of research you intend on undertaking before we so much as look at that egg again will take time. So, I just thought it would be better if we were at least somewhat friendly. Also, I thought if I told you some things about myself it might help differentiate me from him and that might make things easier for you."

Hermione felt her frustration boil over. "But how do you know that's what you're doing? How do you know that you aren't just making it worse?" She shook her head as she tried to hold back her tears. "You didn't know him, you have no idea what he was like."

He seemed to consider this and finally nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Just stop." She held up her hands. "Stop apologizing. But mostly just, stop pushing."

He looked very much like he wanted to protest, but all he said was: "Okay." They ate the rest of their meal in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha/Beta love to Weestarmeggie. This fic should be updated pretty regularly. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Harry tried to abide by her wishes. He really did. But after the passage of more than two weeks, he was coming to the end of his rope.

Hermione went off to work every day leaving him alone in that little flat- which was actually a very charming place- but really, the walls were starting to close in on him. And despite having access to all of her books, as well as those which she brought home with her to aid in their research, and the television, he was bored.

Especially because, even when she was home, the damn witch wouldn't talk to him. Not about anything real. Their research was interesting enough but Harry was used to having ten different projects which he was working at once, and his current circumstances just weren't enough stimulation for him. At the very least he needed to get outside, maybe go for a run, or bully somebody into dueling him.

More frustrating, Hermione made sure to always be perfectly polite to him, kind even. She sometimes brought him books which he knew had nothing to do with their research but were just picked out with the aim to simply amuse him. A practice which annoyed him. And it annoyed him, that it annoyed him. But a large part of him resented her kindness, in many ways his circumstances would have been easier if he didn't like her.

He knew that he had no real right to feel that way, given that he'd literally dropped in on her life. However, he began to grow resentful of the situation. To be living in close proximity to a beautiful and brilliant woman who looked at him and only saw a dead man- a dead man she'd made it very clear he could never compare to- and who resented him greatly for it. And without being able to find any kind of outlet for his pent up energy, because the calestetics and improvised weight training he could do in her flat were simply not enough. It was maddening.

But, when it came down to it, what really bothered him was the spectator's view he got of her life. She went to work. She came home. She bought groceries. He probably would have been going much more stir crazy if she didn't come home, predictably, every night, but her apparent lack of social life irked him in a way he couldn't articulate.

They were two and a half weeks into their research and, as far as they could tell, they were nowhere in terms of making progress into understanding the egg artefact, much less sending him home. He quietly admitted to himself that he was less disappointed than he should have been, especially given his cabin fever.

Then one night she suddenly looked up at him over dinner (he had taken over the cooking duties after he saw the disaster she was in the kitchen) while they were debating a comic that had been printed in the Daily Prophet that morning and seemingly out of nowhere blurted: "I think we need to start looking into getting you a flat."

Harry's entire being revolted and he automatically shook his head. "I couldn't impose on you like that. I'm already eating your food, using your stuff. I know what they pay at the Ministry, you can't afford another flat."

"Money's not a problem." She snapped.

He was about to argue that he still couldn't accept such generosity when her tone caught up with him. It was the one she used whenever they were approaching a forbidden subject, and every time since that first day he had respected that and backed off. However, this time he felt his temper rise and found that he couldn't do it any longer.

He sat back and studied her face. It had taken on that haunted quality which he had learned meant that she was thinking of _him._ "He left you more than just his books, didn't he?"

Her face turned to stone. "That's none of your business."

"I think it is," he snapped back, refusing to be cowed. He'd been tiptoeing around her and not only had it been driving him crazy, but he suddenly realized with startling clarity, that it wasn't good for her either.

"It really isn't," she responded with a good- but ultimately failed- attempt to appear composed.

"If you expect me to use his money I think it is. As you've pointed out, repeatedly, we are not the same person, so it's not my money even though it would have come from the Potter vaults and I really don't like accepting charity, especially from a dead man." Harry knew it was a weak argument, but it was the best he had, hopefully it was enough to get her dander up- he'd noticed that she was even more honest than usual when she was upset.

Hermione bit her lip- she was incredibly obvious- but then she met his eyes and took a deep breath. She visibly gathered herself and Harry had to keep from showing any reaction of his own. It seemed she wasn't as ignorant to her own weaknesses as he'd assumed and her strength was alternatively beautiful and infuriating.

"It's what he would have wanted, so there's no use arguing about it," she responded, sounding almost resigned.

"So it is his money?" He insisted.

"It's my money." She spat back, "and it's none of your business."

And for some reason her refusal to answer such a simple question infuriated him, he'd been trying to push her buttons, but he was the one who snapped. "Tell me Hermione, did he leave you all of it? If it's anything like the Potter fortune in my world, it's vast. You keep saying that you were just friends, but I think you're lying to me. People don't leave a fortune and a centuries old collection of books that has never been owned outside of the family to 'just a friend.' But why lie?" Harry didn't know why he was so anxious for her to admit that they had been lovers, he did know that he was viciously jealous of the other man.

"Not that it's any of your business," she snapped, pointing at him across the table, "but we were just friends! And I think it says a lot about you that you can't imagine a scenario where a man and a woman could be close enough that he would leave her an inheritance. Why do you assume that we had to have a sexual relationship?"

Harry shrugged and her eyes grew steely.

"You know," she scoffed, "payment for sex, they call that prostitution. He could love me without wanting to fuck me."

She stumbled over the word 'fuck' like she'd never said it before and it ruined any shock value she was trying to create. Harry rolled his eyes, but her point struck its mark, even if he'd become an expert at hiding such things: he was now fully furious.

"I'm sorry," he responded, deceptively calm, he actually shrugged, "I just have a hard time understanding why you're absolutely _pining_ for him. I understand grief, but this is pathetic." Harry hated himself for the words even as they were leaving his mouth, because he watched her face crumble.

He had wanted to get a reaction out of her, but he didn't want to hurt her. And yet, he couldn't seem to stop himself.

"How dare you! How dare you burst into my life and judge me. You don't know anything and," she gasped, literally clutching at her chest, "you know what, I feel sorry for you that you seem to know so little about love and friendship that this is such a difficult concept for you to grasp!"

Harry steeled himself. It wasn't the route he would have chosen to take, but he had her right where he wanted her, though he was no longer certain he'd wanted to drive her to this place, it seemed too late to turn back now.

"I know enough to think that he wouldn't want this for you," he insisted. "And not because he's a different version of me, but because anybody who truly loved somebody else would want them to live after they were gone. And what you're doing right now is not living."

She scoffed.

He removed the tie from his hair and ran his hand through it- a stall tactic he'd learned from Sirius- as he tried to figure out what to say. He really should have thought this through. "It's not, Hermione."

"You don't know anything," she protested, but it was meek.

"I know enough. I know that you live here in this tiny flat when you could afford something bigger, which would be fine, if it was actually your choice to stay here. But I'm guessing that it's because he liked it here, am I right?"

She didn't say anything but her face gave her away.

"And maybe you liked it at one time too," he continued, "I can imagine that, because it suits you. But it's no longer a flat, it's a mausoleum. All you do is go to work and come home to this place where you're surrounded by the books that he left you. There are no photographs on the walls, no mementos of happy times. You barely sleep, you only eat enough to literally keep you on your feet. I haven't heard you so much as mention a friend, or even a work acquaintance. This is not living." He shoved his plate away from him to emphasize his point, as juvenile as it may have been.

"Who are you to judge my life?" She said, but he could tell the fight was going out of her, as her usually proud and upright posture crumpled.

"I'm not judging," he immediately contradicted. He was honest enough about himself to know that he had no room to do such a thing. "I'm just saying, this doesn't seem like any way to honor somebody you claimed to have loved so much. You don't speak of him, you can't even look at me. Is that what he would have wanted? Because again, I know that I'm not him, but I can't imagine any version of me that would want that. Not for you, especially."

She began shaking her head almost frantically. "I don't deserve to. I don't deserve anything."

He almost scoffed. This woman had taken in a stranger out of the goodness of her heart, fed and clothed him. He was giving her a difficult time about it but she was pouring her all into helping him, and it was amazing. She actually radiated goodness. She deserved everything.

Maybe that's why it hurt him so deeply to have her keep him at arm's length. He knew he didn't deserve it, but part of him wanted to bathe in the warmth of that goodness. To have a fraction of the luck that this world's Harry had.

And maybe that was also why it bothered him so much to see her so isolated. She had so much to share with this world. "Of course you do."

She continued to shake her head vigorously. "No, you don't know what I've done."

"It can't be anything bad enough to deserve this little life you've relegated yourself to living."

"It is."

"I doubt it."

She met his eyes then and he nearly recoiled at the despair he saw in hers. "I'm the reason he's dead." And then she very calmly got up, walked to her bedroom and slammed the door.

Harry could only gape at the empty chair she'd left behind.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

They spent the next three days in almost complete silence. Harry thought he might spontaneously combust from the tension but he didn't know what else to do except give her time. Pushing her had been a spectacular failure.

If he was being honest, Harry realized that saying he "wasn't very good with people" was actually a massive understatement. Sure, he knew how to work a source, command a hit-wizard team, even seduce any woman who caught his eye for the night.

But when it came to real emotional connections, he mostly found himself at a loss. And trying to talk to a woman who apparently believed she had somehow gotten her best friend killed, was so far outside of his skill set that it was laughable.

He didn't believe that she had actually done any such thing for a minute, but he did have enough emotional acuity to realize that it probably wasn't a good idea to just dismiss her feelings on the issue out of hand.

So, he decided to wait her out. He was well versed in interrogation techniques and he knew that given enough time, the subject in question almost always cracked.

On day four he began to think he might have underestimated her stubbornness, so he provided what comfort he could by making, what he had gathered to be, her favorite meal of roast chicken. It either worked and buttered her up, or he'd just gotten lucky, because halfway through dinner she set down her fork and suddenly started talking.

"He was an Auror," she smiled to herself, and Harry set down his own fork as well in order to give her his full attention, she flicked her eyes in his direction, "Harry, I mean."

He nodded.

"He always felt like he had to save the world. He could have done anything in the world after the war, but nope, he wanted to do his part keeping us all safe," she snorted. "As if he hadn't already done more than his part. I was surprised to find out that you worked in the Department of Mysteries, but that's good, aside from your apparent propensity to play with unknown artefacts, it's safer," she said this last part almost to herself.

Harry wisely remained silent and didn't tell her that the reality of his situation back home was far more complicated than that. He had more advanced training than any Auror in Europe. He was a reserve agent with Magical Interpol, and he often volunteered for dangerous missions.

"Anyway, I didn't start out at the DoM myself," she continued, ignorant of his thoughts.

"Oh?" Harry found that interesting, because her job seemed like a natural fit for her, in his opinion. He had a hard time imagining her doing anything else, but he tried not to let on, he wanted to hear what she had to say.

There was a pregnant pause.

"No," she smiled, but it was bitter. "I actually started in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I was going to save the world one species at a time. I was especially focused on advocating for the rights of house-elves and werewolves."

"Honorable," he noted.

"Thank you," she responded softly, her eyes dropping to the table. "I thought so too, and so did Harry, especially because of Dobby and Remus."

Harry had to temper his reaction to the mention of Moony's first name, he didn't want to spook her and make her stop talking. Though he was wildly curious about how Hermione knew one of the Malfoys' house elves.

"Maybe you can understand. But it wasn't an opinion that was shared by many others, even many of our friends. But, Harry stood by me, even when I would get somewhat overzealous, and I know I tried his patience. He was loyal to a fault."

Well that was something they had in common, though it took a lot to gain his loyalty.

"Anyway, I started to make some headway with my legislation to require inspections of house-elf work environments and to loosen the restrictions on employing werewolves. It seemed like two small steps to me along what would be a very long path, but people were enraged."

"I can imagine," he commisserated. "The wizarding world can be painfully close minded. I bet people who wouldn't even be affected were upset, claiming that you were trying to stomp all over their traditions, or some such rot."

She nodded. "Sounds like your world isn't so different from this one."

"Unfortunately not, in this case at least."

"Anyway," she let out a heavy sigh, "it was worse because it was me. A large portion of the population was already incensed that a Mudblood was not only Harry Potter's best friend but had won an Order of Merlin, First Class."

Harry couldn't suppress the look of surprise that flashed across his face at that news. "Please don't call yourself that," he murmured.

"Yeah," she waved him off but then seemed to think better of it. "I'm sorry, I've taken to using it as a kind of a weapon but that's not fair to you, it's a slur, no matter how stupid I think it is."

That got his attention. "A weapon?"

She licked her lips. "Kind of like the way that my Harry refused to call Tom Riddle, 'You Know Who' or 'He Who Must Not Be Named.' Words have power."

"They do," he agreed quietly.

"So, I guess I've been trying to sort of take the power out of it by refusing to be cowed by it. It shocks people to see me use it without flinching. But to just say it like that, to you, without explaining my context was unfair, I apologize."

"No, it's okay, I can't begin to understand your experience, you know I'm not a muggleborn."

"But your mother was. And I wouldn't want you to think I go around hurling slurs."

He smiled softly. "Believe me Hermione, I don't think that. Go ahead if you can."

She took a deep breath. "I started getting threats. But I was arrogant, I didn't take them seriously. I thought if I could handle Death Eaters then I could certainly handle a bunch of spoiled pure-bloods who'd spent the war hiding in their manors and couldn't function without house-elves. It stupidly didn't occur to me that they had money to hire muscle to do their dirty work."

"It wouldn't occur to most people," he assured her gently. Not everybody was trained to ferret out threats the way that he was, to see them around every corner. He was thankful it wasn't a necessary skill for everybody to possess. Paranoia, even mere caution, came with a cost, and he had paid it for years in loneliness. Is that why Hermione had ended up shutting herself away?

"Well, that's true," she conceded. "But then again I've been through more than most people, I should have known better, or at least listened to Harry, because it did occur to him. He opened a case file, but his bosses said that the threats didn't rise to the level where I warranted protection."

He held up a hand to stop her for a moment. "Hermione, unless I'm misunderstanding this story, you're rather well known in this world? I mean if you have an Order of Merlin..."

That seemed to catch her up short. "Yes, not nearly as well known as he was, but certainly recognizable."

"Then your Harry was correct, any threat against you, especially as a government employee should have been taken seriously. If they failed to do so, that's their fault."

She wrung her hands. "Perhaps blood prejudice isn't as bad in your world as it is here, but at least half of the Ministry would just as soon see me dead as walk into work with them everyday."

He sighed. "I don't know, at least not from personal experience. I'm a half-blood, but I'm also a Potter and the Boy Who Lived, so I'm treated differently from the get go. And I spent most of my life rather...sheltered from society."

"It doesn't matter," she shrugged, "anyway, the DMLE wasn't willing to offer any help unless the threats became more specific and we could identify those who were making them. And even then it probably just would have started in the form of a protection order, which isn't worth the parchment it's printed on."

He nodded.

"Harry wouldn't accept that, and basically appointed himself my personal bodyguard. I'm ashamed to say that I was not gracious about it. I have a rather independent nature."

"I hadn't noticed," he said sarcastically and his heart lifted when her lips quirked in an almost-smile.

"Ron was an Auror too, and he helped some—"

"I'm sorry, Ron?"

She frowned at him. "Ron Weasley, our other best friend."

"The other version of me was best friends with Ronald Weasley?" He asked incredulously. "Is he not a lazy tag-a-long in this world?" Harry bit his lip, realizing belatedly how insensitive he was being.

She sat up a little straighter. "Ron is a good man."

"Okay," he said simply, "go on."

"Anyway, he helped, but he thought Harry was overreacting just like everybody else and since we'd recently broken up it was awkward, so it was mainly just me and Harry, pretty much all the time."

He suppressed a flinch at the idea of this woman dating any version of Ronald Weasley and turned his attention back to her.

"This went on for weeks," Hemione explained, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. "I got antsy, I had been confined to my floor at the Ministry and my flat was basically on lock down. I just wanted to go out for lunch, get a little sun, feel normal. I begged Harry, begged him. 'It'll be the middle of the day,' I said, 'in Diagon Alley, who would dare try anything,' I said. And he agreed, because he knew how I was, how stubborn I could be and he could tell I was becoming deeply unhappy."

She looked away, and it felt like there was a lead weight settling in Harry's stomach as he realized that there was probably a lot more to her insistence that he stay in the flat than he'd known.

She licked her lips and took a shuddering breath. "They were obviously just waiting for the opportunity. He jumped in front of a curse meant for me," then her voice grew so quiet that he could barely hear her, "it wasn't a killing curse. Sometimes I wonder if he might have survived if it had been, but I know that's silly. He died in my arms, right there in the middle of the Alley."

Harry felt like a Hippogriff had just kicked him in the chest and he suddenly knew, deep in his bones, why he was here. He had never planned to tell Hermione about the apparition of the other Harry he'd seen who had led him through to this new dimension. At first because he thought that he'd perhaps gone insane- but, in the end, he knew better.

It wasn't the first time the dead had appeared to him. It had been stupid to ignore it, but he'd been afraid to tell her, terrified of her rejection almost from the moment he met her. He now understood that decision had been patently unfair.

"Hermione."

Her head jerked up and the look in her eyes almost undid him. He wished it was for him. Wished he'd ever had somebody in his life like this. His envy for a dead man burned in his chest.

He viciously suppressed it.

It was time for him to finally be a good man. Not a hero or a warrior, but just quietly present for this woman. He'd gone to war for the whole of the wizarding world but it was so easy for him to see, in this moment, why another version of himself had died protecting one person.

He offered her his hand across the table. She took it.

"Your hands are the same," she said as she struggled to catch her breath, absently stroking his knuckles. "Most of you is so different from him, but the hands are the same."

Harry shifted, scooting his chair around so that he was beside her and took both of her hands in his, rubbing the backs of hers with the pads of his thumbs. Her hands were so small. He'd noticed that she was petite the first day he'd met her, but for the first time he was noticing how truly small she was, delicate. Not fragile though, she had obviously been to hell and back and survived it, even if he didn't know all the details. He was certain that losing her best friend was just the tip of the iceberg.

And he really wasn't in a position to judge people for their coping mechanisms, because Merlin knew he'd been through a slew of them, and his current lifestyle didn't really count as 'living' any more than hers did. Yet he'd still felt the need to push her four nights ago. Not because he was some expert on healthy living, but because he just knew that she deserved better.

"Hold hands a lot, did you?" It was a poor attempt at a joke and he regretted it the moment the words left his mouth, but she just nodded and smiled tearfully at him.

"It was necessary for a long time, so that we wouldn't get seperated. And after that, I guess it was just habit. And comfort," she added more quietly.

Harry couldn't help but wonder what these people had been through. But he also strongly suspected that, despite his natural curiosity, he didn't actually want to know. He would listen if she ever wanted to talk, but he knew it would be painful to hear. Living with his own war stories was bad enough.

"Well I can understand that. This is nice," he said as he continued to rub her hands.

"Do you play quidditch?"

"What?" He let out a startled laugh at that seemingly inane and out of the blue question. But she sounded so eager.

"Quidditch?" She repeated. "Do you play? Or do you like to fly? I was assuming that's why you have the callouses."

That and for a whole host of other reasons.

He did his best to smile warmly at her. "I do, and I love to fly."

"Seeker?"

"Yes. I was never enough of a team player to play any other position."

She smiled. "Harry once told me he really just liked the freedom of being on a broom. That he got to be a part of a larger team was just a bonus."

She bowed her head over their joined hands and he sighed. As much as he selfishly wanted to prolong this moment, finally connecting with her, he knew that it would be selfish. "Hermione, I need to tell you something."

"I—okay." He had obviously startled her out of her reminiscing.

"When I told you about my trip between dimensions, I left something out."

The change in her was instantaneous, her eyes flew open and she sat up straight. "Potter!" She tried to pull away from him but he wasn't letting her go and she didn't have a chance against him in the strength department.

"Listen to me!"

Something in his tone must have caught her attention because she stopped struggling. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you this before, but I didn't think it was important and I don't know, I didn't want to hurt you anymore than I already had by just dropping into your life. But now that I think about it, it might be the most important part."

She clenched her jaw. "Okay," she agreed, but she looked positively mutinous.

For the first time, Harry found himself a little bit afraid of this woman, but he persisted.

"I told you that a tunnel opened up and I followed it here. But what I didn't tell you was that there was a person in the tunnel who led me here, specifically to you."

"A person?"

He nodded. "It was me, but not me. You'd think I would have been confused, but I knew immediately that it was another version of me. It was your Harry, Hermione." She gasped and he squeezed her hands. "He wanted me to follow him, he told me that you needed me."

Her mouth dropped open. "That's impossible."

He snorted. "Do you really believe anything to be impossible? I only know a little about your past, but I know that you're looking at a man from another dimension and that you've known two men in your life who have survived a killing curse. And I can tell you from experience, it's not impossible to talk to the dead."

"Well yes, but—"

"I think what you mean is that you don't believe it could be true, because you don't think that you deserve to have your friend looking out for you even from beyond the veil. You're so determined to punish yourself for his death, that you can't believe that he doesn't blame you—and this is me talking now—would take that curse for you a thousand times. I don't even know you that well Hermione, and I'm still certain that's how he would feel. But, even after all your impassioned speeches to me about love, you don't think that you could be loved that deeply."

She began to shake her head vigorously, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Look at me, Hermione," he shook their joined hands until she finally looked up. "I want you to really look at me for a minute, don't avoid it like you have for the past weeks. I know I'm a poor replacement, or no replacement at all, but he can't be here, sweetheart, so he sent you the next best thing. Let me help you, if not for you, for him."

And with that, the floodgates opened. She lurched forward, and he caught her. Holding her against his chest, he easily scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the living room sofa. He sat down, keeping her gathered up against him, and let her cry. They sat there for hours with her clinging to him, her tears soaking his shirt. And as she made herself so vulnerable in his arms, something within Harry started to unfurl as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Weestarmeggie for beta reading. Thank y'all for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Her sobs came fewer and further between, and when she finally stopped crying altogether Harry looked down at her hoping she'd been able to fall asleep; she was in desperate need of rest. It hadn't escaped his notice how little sleep she got every night. Unfortunately, her eyes were wide open, red and puffy, but dry. So, he thought, while he was at it, he might as well keep pushing.

"Where are your friends, love?"

"What?"

"Your friends, where are they? You mentioned Ron, but surely there are others. Why do you never see them?"

Her heart was too big for there not to be others.

She shrugged. "I've never been very good at making friends."

"Well, me either," he conceded. "But, why do I feel like you're avoiding the question?"

She sat up straighter but kept herself wedged against him. Then she froze. "I'm sorry, is this making you uncomfortable?"

"Is what making me uncomfortable?" he asked, genuinely baffled.

"Well I just sort of threw myself at you. Harry—well, it doesn't bother you to have strangers touching you?"

Well, that was a loaded question, one which also gave him some more hints about her Harry's early life. He didn't generally mind being touched. However, depending on the situation, he was just as likely to cut off a person's wand arm, than embrace them. But he certainly wasn't going to tell her that.

"We might not be friends, but I've been living in your flat for almost three weeks, I'd hardly call us strangers," he said, doing his own avoidance of the question.

She nodded, and he felt himself immeasurably relieved when she didn't move away from him but actually snuggled a little closer. "I guess I may as well tell you the whole messy story, huh? Leave it to Harry to find a way to boss me around from the afterlife."

"As domineering as me, huh?" He tried to joke.

She shook her head. "No, he never would have pushed me like you have. But he had a thing about saving people, especially people he cared about."

"Ah," Harry noted, noncommittally, not really knowing how to take that comment. Hermione didn't seem to notice.

"You were right about the money, you know. He didn't leave me everything, but enough that I'll never have to worry about it for the rest of my life. And the little bugger put a note in his will ordering me not to donate it, he wanted me to enjoy it."

Harry laughed, against his will he was really starting to like this other Harry. It helped that he now believed—though he couldn't have said what convinced him—that he had never been romantically involved with Hermione. "How've you done with that so far?"

"Not great, but you know that," she sighed.

"And your friends?"

"Blame me for what happened to him," she said succinctly.

Harry took in a harsh breath. He'd been fairly certain that's what she was going to say, but rage burned in his chest at having it confirmed. He'd never met these people, but he was absolutely certain that Hermione Granger was too good for them.

"Ginny," she hiccuped, "I think Ginny feels like I stole Harry from her on several levels, our friendship was already strained when Harry...when Harry."

"It's okay, you don't have to say it," he soothed. "But what do you mean she feels like you stole him? Are you telling me they were together?" Harry almost gagged at the thought.

"Yeah, well, on and off."

"These Weasleys must be very different from the ones that I know."

That seemed to surprise her and she looked at him with interest. Harry almost let out a sigh of relief at seeing her act a little more like herself.

"What are yours like?" she asked.

He considered the question. Before he'd come to this world, it had been many years since he'd thought about any member of the Weasley family aside from Bill, with whom he occasionally consulted. And before that, well, he'd never given them much thought anyway.

"Well, Ginevra is a fangirl at best and an accidentally-on-purpose pregnancy waiting to happen at worst." Hermione's eyes went wide at this statement and she actually brought a hand to cover her mouth in her surprise. "She spent all of our time at Hogwarts trying to get close to me, but I'm certain she couldn't tell you a single real thing about me. All she sees is the Title, the money, and the fame. I've met Death Eaters who I prefered, at least they're honest about their intentions."

Hermione blinked. "Oh wow."

"I very much hope for your Harry's sake that she's not like that here?"

"She was, as you say, a fangirl when she was younger. But then she got to know him and they...loved each other."

"Sensing some hesitation there."

"Like I said, it was on and off. I think Ginny decided once they'd finally gotten together that, that was it, she was the next Lady Potter. And Harry was torn because he felt obligated to the Weasleys, he wanted them to be family. From my perspective, theirs was a first love, the kind that most people have as teenagers but then move on from, but it's easy for me to say that in retrospect."

There was a whole lot in there that Harry didn't understand—obligated to the Weasleys, why?—but he didn't think this was the time to get into the particulars. "And you stole him from her? All this time you've been adamant that you weren't lovers," but he nudged her with his elbow to let her know that this time he was just playing. He believed her now, even if he didn't understand, and he thought that maybe, nobody else in their lives had either, and that had been a source of trouble for them.

And as if she'd read his mind she said: "She never outright accused us of it, but I think she suspected that there was more going on between us than we admitted. Ronald wasn't so discreet about his suspicions."

Ah. Ronald Weasley. In Harry's world he wasn't a bad wizard. In fact, Harry thought that he usually acted with the best of intentions. The problem was that it usually also went spectacularly awry. He was magically talented enough, but he wasn't willing to do the work to foster that talent. He had a hot head and an inferiority complex due to having five accomplished older brothers, whom he felt that he could never live up to.

They'd clashed from the moment they were sorted. Ron had desperately wanted to be Harry's friend, but Harry's training had made him suspicious of those who might seek out his company in order to glom onto a little of his fame. And once he'd seen how little effort Ron was willing to put into lessons, he'd quickly distanced himself. Which had bred an ocean of resentment between them.

What was so different here that his counterpart and Ron had been best friends? Maybe, now that she was opening up to him, Hermione would consent to explain it to him, but again, he didn't think this was the time to ask.

"Anyway," Hermione continued, "I was with Harry on his mission during the war and Ginny wasn't, and she was okay with that at first. But that kind of trauma also leads to a certain level of closeness and understanding in the aftermath, we depended on each other a lot in the day to day, and she didn't deal with that so well.

"She wanted to get married right out of Hogwarts, and I'm not ashamed to say that when I saw Harry balking at the pressure she was putting on him that I encouraged him to take a step back if that's what he felt like he needed to do. And then, in those weeks before he died, he was spending so much time with me. And then… well, of course."

He cleared his throat. "You call her a friend, but I'm having a hard time seeing that. She sounds a lot more like the Ginevra of my world than you seem to want to admit."

She shrugged and looked down, picking at a pill on his jeans. "Do you want to hear something really terrible?"

He almost laughed as he wondered if this witch was even capable of something really terrible. "Lay it on me."

"I think what she hates me for most is not that he died, but that he died protecting me." She took a breath and he could tell that she was once again trying to suppress her tears. "Not that she doesn't mourn him, but more than that, she mourns the fact that it wasn't her. She probably imagines that she would have then thrown herself in front of a second curse and they would have gone out together, like some Shakespearean tragedy—not that she would even know what that means," Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and looked up at him with wide, horrified eyes. "I can't believe I just said that," she murmured into her hand, "I told you it was terrible."

Harry kept his face carefully blank, even as a small, morbid, part of him wanted to laugh at the picture she'd just painted, because this sounded very much like the Ginevra Weasley he knew—though, admittedly not very well.

"I think you're entitled to your feelings." His mind healer would be proud. "So, things are complicated with the Weasleys, obviously, but what about everybody else? You must have had other friends at Hogwarts, roommates, muggle friends?"

Hypocrisy, thy name is Harry.

She shrugged. "There were a few people, but I suppose we've just kind of drifted apart."

"Drifted, or you've wrenched yourself away from them?" No, really, his mind healer would be so proud, if only he could apply these principles to himself.

"I don't know," she said, shrugging helplessly. "It was too hard at first, but then I just felt like I didn't belong."

"Belong where?"

"Anywhere."

The Hippogriff that had kicked him in the chest when she'd told him that she believed she was responsible for her Harry's death, was now standing on top of him and not budging, because didn't he know exactly how that felt?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha/Beta love to Weestarmeggie. Thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Wait, wait," Potter laughed. "I'm sorry, I realize that this isn't a funny story, but you're actually telling me that Draco Malfoy, was a Death Eater?"

"So you know him?" Hermione asked. She'd been telling him, in bits and pieces, about her life. Her years at Hogwarts, and the war. It was alternatively painful and interesting, to watch his reactions.

"Of course I do, he's my godfather's cousin."

That brought Hermione up short, and she considered how having Sirius in the picture might have made things different in his world. "Are you friends?"

He shook his head. "Something like reluctant allies. We've had to interact on a semi-regular basis since we were small children, and we were each the de facto leaders of our houses at Hogwarts due to our respective positions in society. It wouldn't have done to have Gryffindor and Slytherin at war because we couldn't get along."

Hermione felt her jaw drop. "Well that's pretty much the opposite of what happened here." She looked at Potter and smirked proudly. "I punched him in the face once."

He let out a bark of laughter. "I'm sure he deserved it. He can be a real pain in the arse."

"Oh he did. But if you aren't even friends, then why do you think it's so absurd that he was a Death Eater? He's a blood purist."

Potter nodded as he finished a bite of his roll. "Oh, to be sure. Though, in all fairness I think that his views on that have become a lot tamer since he was actually forced to interact with Muggle-borns at Hogwarts. Anyway, plenty of people are blood purists and they never became Death Eaters, most actually. Frankly, Draco doesn't have it in him. The man gets manicures, for Merlin's sake! And as much as he talks a big game to live up to his station, he'd rather be locked in his lab brewing, or doing his alchemy experiments than anything else. He's a snob, not a sadist."

Hermione considered this. It sounded very much like what she'd heard the Malfoy of her world was up to at the moment.

"His father was a Death Eater though."

Potter snorted. "Yeah, and old Lucius couldn't switch sides fast enough when given the opportunity. The man is an opportunist. I don't like him even a little bit, but he's not Bellatrix Lestrange, and I guess I do admire him somewhat for wanting to protect his family, as self serving as it may have been."

Hermione actually froze, fork poised above her plate. "Wait a second. You're telling me Lucius Malfoy fought for the Light?"

"He was a spy, yes," Potter nodded. "Sirius told him he wouldn't have a Death Eater in the family and threatened to dissolve his marriage contract with Narcissa under the morality clause, voiding their marriage and ill-legitimizing Draco if he didn't defect. But like I said, it was as if he was just looking for an excuse."

"Wow, okay, wow," she breathed. An alive and free Sirius Black had obviously had a large impact on Potter's world, far more than she had even contemplated.

They were quiet for a few moments as they ate their dinner.

"Hermione," he said, and she tensed up.

She knew that tone of voice, he was about to ask her for something and was afraid of her answer. "It's been nearly a month, I've got to get out of this flat."

"It's not safe," she answered automatically.

"My glamours are perfect, sweetheart."

The way he called her 'sweetheart' which had at first, irritated her, now made her feel stupidly warm inside. Perhaps that was because he'd gone from saying it sarcastically, to saying it with real affection. Still, she was determined to ignore her own unwitting reaction; it was one thing to talk to him, to try and exorcise some of her demons, it was another to grow fond of him.

"There is magic that can dispel a glamour," she responded calmly, despite her racing thoughts.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Not common magic, not by a long shot. And why would anybody have a reason to use it on me anyway? Look, I know this is a touchy subject for you, I get it. But there's no point in sending me home if I'm insane when I get there from being all cooped up."

"You're being a little dramatic," she rolled her eyes, but she held up her hands before he could protest. "But, I've been giving this some thought too. I don't actually enjoy keeping you here like a prisoner."

He perked up immediately and she felt a rush of pleasure at having cheered him up.

"Please excuse how this is going to sound, but the eyes and the scar are the problem. They're your most distinguishable features."

He just nodded.

"If anybody suspects anything, that's what they'll check first, so obviously we have to hide them but I don't think we should use magic to do it."

He frowned in confusion.

"Muggle methods," she clarified.

"Oh," he sat up a little straighter, "that's kind of brilliant."

"You don't have to sound so surprised," she laughed.

"Sorry," he winked at her. "You know I think you're brilliant though."

She looked away and continued on without comment. "I just thought some colored contacts and some concealer on your scar, maybe a hat as well, would do the trick. We'll still have to be cautious, people will be curious about any man that I'm with in wizarding areas, but I think it'll work."

"I won't take any risks," he swore immediately. "I just need some air."

"Hmmmm, why do I have a hard time believing that you won't be able to help yourself?"

He leaned across the table and took her hand. "I really am very grateful to you Hermione, I know I'm not always good at expressing it, but I appreciate all that you've done for me. All that you continue to do for me. It's one thing to put myself at risk, but I won't do that to you."

She gazed into his green eyes, there was affection for her in them now, and nodded. "Okay," she said, barely above a whisper. "Now I believe you."

They had never again discussed finding him his own flat, not after that first disastrous conversation. It was as if they'd come to a silent agreement not to. Hermione couldn't exactly articulate her reasons for wanting to keep him around, and she assumed that he had his own - and that they didn't really have anything to do with money - but because he left it alone, so did she.

"So, your Harry got that too?" Potter asked.

As each day passed, he was asking more and more questions about Harry. It was obvious to Hermione that he was wildly curious, but he was still hesitant. Hermione could tell he was trying to be respectful. Upsetting her had clearly also upset him, and she appreciated his thoughtfulness.

But after that first horrible night when she'd explained to Potter what had happened to Harry, she found that it felt good to talk about him, and so she was willing to answer almost all of them. The few that she didn't was only because she felt that, even in death, Harry deserved some privacy.

She didn't know why she'd been able to believe Potter - who was basically a stranger and had never met Harry - when he insisted that Harry's death wasn't her fault, when so many people who had known, and loved him, blamed her. Maybe it was because for all her insistence about the fact that they weren't the same person, Potter was another version of her Harry, and so his opinions rang true to her.

But she suspected it was mostly because Harry had sent Potter to her. That story had seemed too good to be true at first, but now it just felt right. It would be such a Harry thing to do, to find a way, even in death, to knock some sense into her. And who else would be stubborn enough to get through to her than a Potter?

"What's that?" She asked in return, uncertain as to what he was referring.

"You know, people looking at him and mentally going: 'Is that Harry Potter? Scar, check. Eyes, check.'"

"Yes," she agreed with a bob of her head. "And most horrifying of all were the people who had the nerve to ask to see the scar. I'm not sure what's worse, that or that horrible moniker they gave him."

Potter shook his head. "And in two different worlds. 'Boy Who Lived,'" he mocked. "Did it not occur to anybody what I lived through? What that would be a reminder of? The best part of the ritual, well except for that part where I got a piece of the dark arsehole out of my head, was that the scar faded so much. People still look for it, but it doesn't practically shout at them anymore."

"Dark arsehole," she chuckled.

"Fucking twat," he added. "I have a whole list of things I call him if you'd like to hear it."

She shook her head, a token admonishment for his language on the tip of her tongue, but then what he'd just said caught up with her. "Wait a minute, what ritual?"

He frowned. "The ritual to cleanse me of the Horcrux. It was fucking torture, but totally worth it."

And for at least the tenth time in the span of just a few weeks Hermione felt like she'd had all of the air sucked out of her lungs. "You—you underwent a ritual to have the Horcrux removed?"

"Well yeah. How else would you do it?" He asked, apparently unaware of her distress. "Did your Harry find another way, because I'd be really interested to hear about that. Like I said, our way was fucking torture."

Hermione recognized the signs of a panic attack coming on, but she'd already begun to hyperventilate before she could do any of the things she'd learned to ameliorate them.

She pushed back from the table and bent over, putting her head between her legs. Potter rushed over and knelt in front of her, talking her through it.

He obviously had experience with such things.

His calm voice and his assurances helped.

"That's it sweetheart, it's almost over." He rubbed her back and she took several deep breaths.

"Thank you," she croaked.

"Of course, I know how scary those can be."

She just nodded and eyed the table full of food. "I think I'm done with dinner."

He nodded in return. "It'll keep. I'll clean up here, you just go relax in the living room."

"Thanks, I'm really going to miss having you to do my own cooking and chores when you're gone," she attempted to joke, standing on shaky legs.

He gave her a smile that looked almost sad, but she didn't have the energy to interpret why that might be at the moment.

It took him just a few minutes - the man really was a wiz at household charms, it was hard to believe he'd grown up with house elves - before he came into the living room and sat next to her.

"Can you talk about it?" He carefully put an arm around her and she gratefully sank into his warmth. "I don't want to push you, but I also don't want to accidentally upset you again."

She just nodded. "I actually think this is one of those things I need to talk about. It's—I've never accepted it."

"Whenever you're ready."

"Harry sacrificed himself. For a short time he was basically dead."

There was a long pause. "I'm sorry sweetheart, I don't understand."

"The war came to a climax at Hogwarts. Voldemort called Harry out, told him to give himself up and that the rest of us would be spared. He knew, of course, that it was a lie, but Snape had left him a vial of memories and during the time he was given to contemplate Voldemort's generous offer," she said sarcastically, "he went and used the Headmaster's pensieve to view them.

"Dumbledore had been convinced that Harry was a Horcrux and therefore he had to die—had to give himself up as a sacrifice, in fact, so that Voldemort would be mortal and could be killed. So, of course Harry did it. He walked right out of the castle and into the Forbidden Forest, without telling any of us what he was up to, and offered himself up like a sacrificial lamb."

Harry swore under his breath.

"He was something like dead for a little while. He had a conversation with Dumbledore. He was given a choice whether to come back or move on, and he chose to come back. But it was only by sheer luck that the fact that he was actually still alive wasn't discovered. Voldemort and his Death Eaters marched on the castle intent on rubbing his death in our faces, forcing our surrender. Hagrid was carrying Harry's body, it was heartbreaking. Up until that point it was the worst moment of my life. I was so sure that he was dead. But we won," she shook her head vigorously. "Some victory it turned out to be."

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"Would you have rather gone that route?"

Harry took a look at this remarkable witch who, even after all these years, was still devastated by what her friend had endured, and he didn't have the heart to tell her that he would have- and that he might have chosen not to go back, but instead moved on to be with his mother and left the mess of his world behind for others to clean up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha/Beta love to Weestarmeggie. Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It took Hermione an embarrassingly long time to realize what her dimension traveling roommate was up to. Or more precisely, what he had been distracting her from noticing. He was far better at diverting her attention than her Harry had been.

His enthusiasm to explore her world was contagious and they had made their way out of the flat on a few occasions. She had been too nervous to go anywhere near any predominantly magical areas, but Potter didn't seem to mind. In fact, he didn't have any particular activities in mind and was happy to allow her to show him around London at her leisure.

The London Eye was a particular source of fascination for him because apparently it didn't exist in his world. Instead they'd built some kind of spiraling tower to celebrate the turn of the millenium. Interestingly enough, the Millennium Bridge existed in both worlds.

He was a good companion. Fun. He kept to his word and didn't take any risks which would have led to his exposure. He was alternatively filled with childlike glee at the new discoveries he was making, and so serious that it sometimes gave her whiplash. He ate voraciously, and as he had assured her on his first night in her world, he was willing to eat anything, but he also had decided preferences.

He was smart, in the way she'd always suspected her Harry had been, but had never been comfortable demonstrating. He was an intense researcher. He didn't love reading the way that she did, but he was committed.

Her admiration for him is what kept her from noticing for many weeks that, as hard as he worked, he didn't actually seem anxious to find a solution. He was intellectually interested in finding a way to get himself home, but he didn't seem at all emotionally invested.

Once she realized that, she started noticing that while he was happy to share little tidbits of information about his life in his world, they were nothing truly personal, mostly just random trivia. She'd learned nothing of his childhood, of his own war, or of what he'd been up to since it ended except that he worked in the DoM.

Any mention of Sirius, and especially of James Potter, was immediately redirected. She knew that she didn't necessarily have a right to his story, but he was getting hers, a little more every day, in fact. He'd barged his way into her life and it left her feeling more than a little resentful that he'd closed her off so completely. And it was infuriating that he seemed to think she wouldn't notice.

But they had been living so peacefully together that she was somewhat afraid to confront him about it. So, for the better part of a week she held her tongue and just continued on with the routine they had established: she would get up at her usual time, Potter made sure she ate something before she ran out the door, she went to work, spent her lunch hour scouring the DoM archives for anything to help them with their research. When she returned home every evening they would eat together, and then spend the rest of the night working side by side doing more research.

She really did love her flat. Despite what Potter seemed to think, her attachment to it went beyond its connection to Harry. It had felt like home to her when she'd found it, and home was a place she'd begun to despair she would ever find again after the war. Her favorite part was a loft space over the living room which led out to a rooftop balcony.

She and Potter had converted the space into the center of their research efforts and that's where they hunkered down together, often into the early hours of the morning. They'd organized the materials in a way which would probably not seem logical from an outside perspective, but made sense to the two of them.

But tonight, Hermione's curiosity finally got the better of her as she watched Potter, scribbling intently on a roll of parchment, his eyes flicking between several different tomes.

"Why don't you want to go home?" She blurted.

His head shot up. "Excuse me?"

She took a fortifying breath. "You heard me. You don't seem to be in any hurry to get home."

"Why would you say that? I've been very focused on our research," he told her with narrowed eyes.

She didn't miss the fact that he didn't actually answer her question. "Focused, yes, but passionate, no. It's like you're interested in the theory, but you don't actually care whether it works or not."

"That's not true." He didn't sound even a little bit convincing.

"And do you know what else I've noticed?" She prodded. What was good for the goose was good for the gander, as far as she was concerned.

"I can't begin to imagine, Hermione, you seem to notice everything." He seemed to be aiming for light and unaffected, distracting her with flattery, but his eyes were darting around like he was looking for an escape.

"You never talk about yourself."

He scoffed. "I've told you all about myself."

She just stared at him; he didn't flinch. "You've told me amusing anecdotes. I know your favorite foods and how you take your tea. But you haven't told me anything real. What about your family? Aren't you anxious to get back to James and Sirius? Don't you think they're worried sick about you?"

She paused, but he remained stony-faced, so she continued. "How are they, by the way? Are either of them married? And what about your war, it was obviously different from ours. What happened to you?"

"It doesn't matter."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his flippancy. "Doesn't it? You know a lot of my deepest darkest secrets. Would it kill you to give me something real?"

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. She supposed that to some people, most probably, this posture would be intimidating, but she was undeterred.

"There's really nothing to tell. I'm really not that interesting."

This time he sounded like he meant it. He was a good liar, but she had the advantage of having known another version of him, and also having lived with him for nearly six weeks and she didn't believe him. She was both annoyed and beginning to get upset, but she tamped down on both emotions viciously lest he use them to redirect her.

"Okay, maybe you don't think so, but I'm interested. Would you tell me about your father, at least?"

"Why?"

She shrugged, hoping it looked nonchalant. "Because I heard a lot of stories about my Harry's dad and he sounded like fun. Plus, the first thing you asked me about this world's version of him was if he flirted with me and...I don't know, like I said, I'm interested. Surely you can understand that, given all the questions you have about Harry."

Potter shifted, he looked towards her but she could tell that he was actually focused on a place somewhere over her shoulder. It was one of his tells.

"I don't know what you want to know, he's my dad. How would you describe your parents?"

Well, she certainly didn't want to go there. And more than that, she was not going to be deterred, even though she knew that she was probably treading into dangerous territory, both with his temper, but especially with her own emotions. She'd been determined not to get to know him when he'd first arrived, to keep him at arm's length. And intellectually, she still knew that would be the best idea. If she came to care for him, she would only inevitably get hurt again. His time here had an expiration date, even if it did seem to be drifting further and further into the future.

But since she'd made that resolution he'd had the nerve to dig into her life, and she'd told him deep, personal things about herself that she'd never revealed to another person. And he had given her nothing in return. She felt had.

Hermione Granger was many things, but she was not about to stand by and be duped. And, well, she was a curious creature but more than that, she'd been living with this man for six weeks, she wanted more than a few superficial stories from him, she wanted this to be a two-way street.

"Are you and your dad close?" She pressed, ignoring his question. "I assume that you are, since it was just the two of you, right?"

Potter sighed and licked his lips. "I guess you could say that. Though it wasn't exactly just the two of us. Sirius lived with us for most of my childhood and Remus was around all the time. Or all the time on and off, considering that he and Sirius—" he waved his hand in a way that Hermione knew she was meant to understand, but was actually lost on her.

She frowned. "Well, I know they were all close. At least my version of the three of them were. But I sense that I'm missing something."

He tilted his head at her and laughed. "Uh, yes, apparently. I mean that Sirius and Remus were together for years. On and off, at least."

Hermione felt her mouth drop open. Not that she had any problem with it, but the idea of these two men in particular being in a relationship threw her for a loop. But then she thought about it, and it actually made sense. It was just that she'd only ever seen Sirius as a more than slightly unhinged prison escapee, and in her mind Remus had belonged to Tonks.

However, they had clearly cared for each other deeply. And Remus had only gotten into a relationship with Tonks after Sirius' death. She had chalked that up to his issues about being a werewolf, but perhaps it had been a many layered issue. Or perhaps her version of these men had never been together, she would never know. However, she hoped, on some level that they had been, neither had experienced much love in their lives.

"Oh!" She gasped.

He smirked. "You really didn't know about that?"

"No. And I'm not even certain it actually happened here. Not to mention, it certainly wasn't any of my business. I'm actually more surprised that I never considered it, to be honest. But it took me a long time to realize what was going on between Remus and Tonks, and she was not subtle. So perhaps it's not so surprising I didn't notice anything if there was anything to notice."

"That's still weird as hell," Potter commented, making a face.

"They made a beautiful little boy," she responded, barely above a whisper.

"Hey, that wasn't a judgement. Just, from my perspective, it's weird. To me Tonks is just Sirius' goofy cousin."

Hermione shook herself. " Okay, fair," she conceded. "So, are they still together?"

Potter's eyes fell shut. "Ah, no, Remus was killed during the war."

"Oh shit," she gasped, reaching over to cover his hand with hers. "I just assumed that even though he died in this world that since your dad and Sirius… but I never should have assumed. I'm so sorry."

He turned his hand in hers and squeezed. "It's okay, I know you didn't mean it maliciously," he paused, "we weren't close by the end anyway."

Hermione just squeezed his hand in return and waited to see if he would continue without further prompting.

"If I'm being honest, our relationship was alway rocky. Like I said, he was around a lot when I was a kid. Not all of the time. There were long periods where he would just disappear and it made me really angry. I felt abandoned and after awhile I just didn't trust him to be there for me at all anymore."

She nodded, even as her heart broke a little. "Understandable."

"As an adult I understand better. He was wrestling with his very nature. Or denying it, I guess. And as much as they loved each other, I think his relationship with Sirius was deeply unhealthy. I think—" he stopped suddenly and gazed at her, like he was measuring her and trying to decide if she could be trusted with this information. And perhaps he decided she could be, or that it didn't matter, because who was she going to tell? He continued: "I think they loved each other, but they had too many of their own demons to really make it work in the long term. Dad probably should have put his foot down about the revolving door of witches and wizards that made their way through Padfoot's bed during Remus' absences but—" he shrugged.

"I'm still sorry," she murmured.

Potter shrugged again. "Thank you, but it was his own fault. Dumbledore sent him on a mission to infiltrate the werewolf packs. It was doomed to failure, and frankly I think he knew it, but he decided to go out like a martyr," he said bitterly. "We all begged him not to go...he barely lasted one moon cycle."

"Merlin," she whispered to herself. "And Sirius, how did he handle that?"

"Well he was upset, obviously, but I think he was more angry than sad. We all were. And they hadn't been in a relationship for a while by then. Sirius finally got his shit together and married a lovely witch named Celine a few years ago. They have an adorable little girl called Astrid."

"Good for him." She chuckled to herself, trying to imagine Sirius Black as a father. "And what about your dad?"

"What about him?"

"I don't know. How is he? What does he do for a living? Are the two of you close? You never really said."

"He manages the estate and does some consulting work," he said, eyes far away. "And he's fine now, he did get a little lost in his grief—" he abruptly cut himself off, snapped his book closed and hastily shoved it away, then he jumped to his feet. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry. I was thinking of making carbonara tonight. How does that sound?"

It was such an obvious diversionary attempt that Hermione was momentarily thrown and it gave him the chance to go bounding down the spiral staircase into the living area. She heard him banging around in the kitchen before her body really caught up with her brain.

He was, she realized, much better at this than she was. Once he'd pushed her, her walls had crumbled and there had been no rebuilding them. But she had the distinct impression that he was fortifying his at this very moment, that he'd trained himself to keep people out.

She wondered where he'd learned to do that. How he could be so magically competent and yet so emotionally stunted? She knew he hadn't experienced a childhood with the Dursleys. And she'd seen enough to know that he was highly trained, far beyond what Hogwarts offered. Somebody- supposedly James- had clearly seen to his education. But perhaps she'd made an error in assuming that the simple fact of having his father and godfather in his life meant that he had been nurtured.

Hermione decided to play the long game as she had a sneaking suspicion she couldn't force anything out of him. She'd have to be more careful about it. She needed to convince him that he could trust her with his secrets. Because she was beginning to wonder if Harry had sent Potter to her as much for his sake as for hers.

But also, she just didn't want to fight with him tonight, which she was certain would be the outcome if she tried to interrogate him further. Dinner with Potter was her favorite time of day. Sometimes, lately, looking forward to it had been the only thing getting her through her days, and she didn't want to ruin it. So she just went downstairs and asked if there was anything she could do to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've mentioned that I have a Pinterest board for this story. There's not much on it at the moment but the inspiration for Hermione's flat is there if you want some help visualizing- same name there. Alpha/Beta love to Weestarmeggie. Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Harry heard Hermione climbing the spiral staircase to the loft of her flat one morning before dawn, just as she did almost every morning. She would tip-toe up the stairs, and then he would hear the door to the rooftop deck open and shut. She'd stay out there for about half an hour and then come back down to start her day. He was wildly curious about this little routine, but the way that she attempted to sneak past him, even though he was always awake, and he had an inkling that she knew it too, made it perfectly clear to him that she wouldn't welcome his company.

But this morning he heard her stop about halfway up the stairs. There was a long pause before she spoke: "Potter?" She called softly.

"Yeah?" He asked, as if he hadn't been listening to her so carefully.

There was a pause and he heard her blow out a breath. "Are you awake?" She eventually asked.

He chuckled, but immediately bit down on his lip to stop the sound lest it make her self-conscious. "Obviously."

She huffed and he watched her shadow bounce up and down against her packed bookcases, like she was dancing on the tread of the stair where she was standing, and it occurred to him that she was nervous. "What I meant was, well if you wanted to be not just awake but up, um, maybe you could join me?"

He all but launched himself out of bed. He grabbed a jumper, pulled it over his head, and closed the space between him and the staircase in three long strides.

She was waiting for him and when he reached her, he playfully prodded her the rest of the way up. She giggled—giggled—and tried to dart away from him but he grabbed the back of her shirt. She squealed in protest but didn't fight him.

When they got outside, Harry was surprised to see that she chose to seat herself on the stone floor instead of taking one of the lounge chairs. She brought her knees to her chest, patted the spot next to her in invitation, and wrapped her arms around her legs. He plopped down beside her and they sat in silence until the sun slowly began to light the sky.

"This is my favorite time of day," she said eventually, whispering just loudly enough for him to hear.

He glanced at her cautiously, he was wildly curious, but he truly didn't want to pry and upset her; at least not without cause. But he sensed that this was a deeply personal topic. "Is that why you come up here most mornings?"

Her lips twitched and she glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. "Yes. I've always been a morning person, but it was during the war that I started watching the sunrise. It was a good reminder that every day was a new beginning, no matter what horrible thing or disappointment had happened the day before, we could start over with the sun. That probably sounds incredibly cheesy."

"No," he said, his voice raspy, "I envy and admire your optimism. I wish I was built that way."

"More like desperation to cling to anything good," she scoffed.

Harry bit his lip as something coiled within his chest. "Same thing, in my opinion. If you're desperate but still able to hold onto something good, that's the definition of optimism, and really admirable."

She didn't comment on that but her lips curved into a small smile. When she eventually spoke again she said: "I love that color," she gestured to the violet color of the sky that was slowly giving way to brilliant orange.

"Hmmm," he responded in a noncommittal manner.

She propped her cheek on her knees so that she was facing him fully. "What do you like about this time of day?"

"Nothing," he answered immediately, voice flat.

She blinked at him, frowning slightly. "What? But you're always awake at this hour, even though you don't have to be."

Her eyes were wide and so curious that he almost smiled. She was the least subtle person he'd ever met. Ever since their conversation about his family the week before he'd often caught her just staring at him, as if she looked at him hard enough she could figure him out. Or just will him to talk to her. But she kept quiet, and with each passing day it annoyed him less. He'd actually begun to consider opening up to her.

And she'd just given him another piece of herself by sharing this special part of her day with him, so he told her the truth. "It's just a habit."

"Oh."

Harry could hear the disappointment in her voice that that was all the explanation he was going to provide. He shifted around in a pointless attempt to get more comfortable. "You asked me if my dad and I are close, the answer is 'no.' It's true, we spent a lot of time together when I was growing up, probably more than most kids do with their parents, actually. But it wasn't exactly quality time because my father chose to raise a soldier, instead of a son. From before I can remember, my life was all about regimen and that included a five am wake up call."

"But why? That seems awfully harsh for a little kid."

He cocked one eyebrow at her. "Ah, yes, but I wasn't exactly your average kid was I?"

She gasped. "Because of Voldemort? He was getting you ready to be able to fight him when the time came?"

He nodded. "My father adored my mother. I don't remember their relationship, of course, but just from hearing him talk about her, and hearing stories about the two of them, it's clear that he put her on a pedestal. Frankly, the way that he remembers her, even to this day, it's more than any real person could ever live up to." He sighed. "And she had sacrificed her life for mine, so he decided that the least he could do for her, the only thing he could do, was to make sure that I lived."

"No matter the cost," she surmised.

"Yes," he nodded. "He got me the best tutors: physical fitness, mind arts, combat training. He educated me on the matters of our estate himself but he always held himself apart. I had every material and educational advantage but every minute of every day was scheduled. I didn't know any different, but looking back on it, it was stifling."

"I'll bet."

"And ironically," he let out a bitter laugh, "Dad's life was chaos. He was a drunk; a potions addict and he would regularly disappear for days at a time and by the time I was six or so I was pretty fed up with all the adults around me acting like I was too stupid to know that there was .something seriously wrong."

"People forget how intuitive kids can be, how much they notice"

"I didn't need to be intuitive, it was obvious. He'd come stumbling home yelling for Mum, or crying about how he wished he'd died too."

She cursed under her breath then reached over and took his hand. He allowed it. "Where was Sirius in all this? You said he was living with you, was he there for you?"

"He did his best, but it's not like his own childhood was a picnic, so I think he was kind of at a loss about what to do with me. And he felt so guilty for being the one to talk Dad into leaving the house that Halloween, I think he felt like it was his responsibility to take care of him. So if it was a choice between me and him, he picked Dad."

"And you were just, what? Forgotten?"

Harry almost smiled. Her anger on his behalf warmed his heart. "I had my tutors and my schedule, Hermione," he answered sarcastically.

She just shook her head.

"So, I begged, begged to be allowed to go to Hogwarts. I just wanted some friends, and I think maybe I hoped that if I went and got sorted into Gryffindor, spent some time in the place where the Marauders and my parents had met, that it would bring me closer to them."

"Can I assume it didn't work?"

"No, Dad finally agreed to let me go but I was only allowed to participate in about half of the normal curriculum, the rest of my time was spent with a legion of tutors that came parading through the castle which was rather humiliating for an eleven year old."

She nodded.

"And just by virtue of being the Boy Who Lived I was already set apart from the other students. When I tried to make friends with them, I may as well have been trying to befriend a group of aliens, it was like they spoke a foreign language and came from an entirely different culture. And by then my ability to trust anybody's motives was so damaged, looking back on it, I was doomed to failure before I ever entered the castle."

"But you said something a while ago about you and Malfoy being the leaders of your respective Houses."

He gave her a long searching look. "There's a big difference between having followers and having friends."

"Right. Of course you're right." She sighed. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "And then, there was the war. The entire population of Great Britain adores me from afar, but the truth is that I terrify them."

"I don't think you're so scary." She nudged him with her shoulder.

"That's because you don't know what I've done."

She held his gaze, a question in her eyes.

He shook his head. "Not today."

"Okay," she nodded, "understood. But for the record, I know you well enough to know that you're no monster. Whatever you did, needed to be done, and I know something about that. I won't judge you for it."

Harry nodded, wishing he could believe her.

"What about your dad, is he—"

"Clean and sober," Harry let out a bitter laugh. "And do you know what did it?"

"No."

"Voldemort's resurrection. Not his son, but so that he could be coherent enough to help take out the man who killed his wife."

"Or," she interrupted, "that was just the wake up call that he needed. Maybe he wanted to be sure he was there for you when you most needed him."

He shook his head. "I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but nothing he ever did for me was actually for me."

"He loves you, I'm sure of it."

"I know that. Now. I know that he wasn't choosing my mother over me. I know that he was just processing his grief the only way he knew how. And given that I'm the apple that didn't fall far from the fucked up tree, I also know that I don't really have room to judge him. But it's just all come a little too late for our relationship."

"I don't think that's true."

He ignored her. "So, there you have it, my tale of woe," he said dramatically, with a roll of his eyes. Harry knew that, at only twenty-six he sounded like a lonely, bitter, old man. His mind healer assured him he was entitled to his feelings but he was suddenly very self-conscious about the way he'd just whined to Hermione. In the scheme of things his life hadn't been that bad.

"Potter," she sighed.

He ignored her again. "So maybe you can see why I'm not chomping at the bit to get back to a world where, when it comes down to it, I have nobody and nothing. I don't mind taking my time hanging out here with you where at least I'm enjoying myself."

She sighed again, but couldn't help but reach for him, "that might be the saddest thing I've ever heard."

* * *

Hermione tried to organize her racing thoughts so that she could properly respond to what Potter had just told her. It seemed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Despite the presence of James, Sirius, and even—for the most part—Remus, in his life, Potter had also had a neglectful childhood. It was a different sort of neglect than her Harry had experienced, but it was neglect, nonetheless.

Her heart cracked further. Where had she been? Or at least, where had the other version of her been? It killed her, but it would do neither of them any good to mourn the past—or the past that would never be.

And she knew that wondering about her 'other' self was, in fact, quite conceited. Because there were actually a million variables at stake, she might not have made any difference in his life, even if she had been around. But looking at the man at her side who was in pain, it made that difficult to remember.

And with a chill in her veins she had to recognize that while her and Potter's universes had been parallel, they were by no means identical. Perhaps she'd never existed in his at all. That idea hurt more than she could explain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since a lot of people have asked I thought I'd let you know that those questions Hermione was asking at the end of this chapter will be answered. I won't leave you hanging as to the fate/existence of Hermione's other self, but you'll have to be patient. ;) Alpha/Beta love to Weestarmeggie. Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Harry was not the intellectual that Hermione was, but he was no slouch, and he knew that they were reaching the bottom of the proverbial well with their research. Luckily, what they had been able to discover was promising, at least for his return voyage home. They'd unraveled most of the enchantment on the egg, and they were well on their way to reverse engineering it.

Meanwhile, Harry was growing less and less certain he wanted to make such a trip. Or, to put a finer point on it, that he wanted to leave Hermione behind forever. Again, he wasn't a fool, he knew that it was unnatural, and therefore probably unsafe to stay in a dimension that wasn't his own. But he was going to miss her like a hole in his heart.

He agreed with the idea that he might have been brought here by somebody who meant him- or both of them- harm. But, despite that knowledge and the danger he knew he might have brought, he also didn't want to leave. He liked the life he'd carved out in the months he'd been in her dimension. He loved the place he had in Hermione's flat, in her daily routine, in her kitchen; hell, he felt proprietary about his jogging route. But he did his best to hide his thoughts- she had enough on her plate as it was without his worries.

"Do you think there's anything about the nature of the artefact in particular?" Hermione asked one evening, seemingly at random.

She was seated on the kitchen worktop, swinging her feet, watching him cook because he'd declared that she was only allowed to do so much to help with making their meals. Potter had decided that her potions experience did allow for her to chop ingredients, but aside from setting the table, that was it. If it wasn't totally clear that he otherwise respected her as a witch, Hermione would have thrown a fit at his highhandedness- even if he did have a point about her cooking skills.

As it was, she was secretly pleased to have breakfast and dinner prepared for her without having to worry about it, and to have a companion to vent to once she returned from work.

Which is what had led to their current conversation.

"The nature?" He questioned.

"An egg," she answered, "a Faberge Egg, specifically. It's not exactly subtle. You know, of course, that it's not one of the originals, but it's a very good and expensive replica. I can't help but think that means something, at least symbolically. Why else would whoever did whatever they did have gone to the trouble?" She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Merlin, it's even in Gryffindor colors."

Harry froze, slightly startled by her observation, and then turned from his place where he was carefully tending to the onions he was caramelizing. "That's… not a bad theory. You think it was meant to lure me in?"

She bit her lip and looked away. "I didn't mean it as an accusation," she answered quietly.

"I'm not offended by the idea, please don't be afraid to tell me."

"I don't know," she licked her lips, clearly gathering her thoughts. "I just think that it's awfully coincidental. It feels like a set up, but I can't imagine how that would even work."

"You still think that I was lured into a trap in seeking out the egg in the first place?"

Hermione looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and then rolled them dramatically. "I've already told you that, I told you that the very first day you got here."

There was a very large part of Harry that wanted to bite back in response- just on instinct- to defend himself. But for once he told the unadulterated truth, because he trusted the woman standing next to him and he thought it was time that he started doing better by them both. She was not responsible for his decisions, and he really needed to be more honest with himself.

"I think that's a very large possibility as well, what do you suggest?"

"That's what I don't know," she sighed with exasperation, "but it worries me, because I don't know what kind of trap we should be worried about. Are there people who we should be worried about coming after you? Or were you just meant to be dumped here and left? Are the people here in danger? It's not fair to them. This is an entirely unknown factor."

He actually reared back in surprise and his face crumpled. "I am so sorry, sweetheart, most of those things stupidly never occurred to me, but I swear I'll never allow any harm to come to you, and I will do my best for the rest of your world."

She smiled at him sadly. "I know that you mean well. But I'm very used to people making well meaning promises that they can't keep." She touched his face gently. "Don't worry, I can take care of myself."

"Maybe," he murmured, cutting his eyes in her direction.

"Don't do that," she responded.

"Sorry," he said quickly, "that was insensitive."

She just nodded, but then quickly shook her head. "It's fine." She met his eyes. "Really."

He took a deep breath, obviously thinking of a way to change the subject. "You know," he smirked after a second, "it might just be a wizarding thing."

"A wizarding thing? What are you talking about?"

"Yeah you know, wizards tend to be a lot more dramatic than your average muggle, in my experience."

Hermione snorted. "You're right, logic is barely a thing in the magical world."

"Yeah, so maybe some wizard just saw the egg in a shop and thought 'ohhh pretty egg. Buy pretty egg and make pretty magic with it.'"

She burst out laughing. "Was this wizard also a caveman? Or a toddler?"

Potter grinned at her. "I'm just saying it's a pretty silly thing to do, it's a really memorable object. If I was going to design something like that I'd do it with something pretty ordinary, something nobody would be bothered with unless they knew what it did. That's part of what was so stupid about the objects Voldemort used to make his horcruxes."

She was shaking her head before he'd even finished speaking."But that's my point, Potter. Voldemort wanted to keep his horcruxes safe, this was designed to be used."

He sighed, quietly conceding her point. "I'm not saying that it wasn't a trap, I just don't know that the artefact was specifically designed to attract me. I'm just saying, my gut tells me that the object itself is just a vessel, it doesn't have any importance other than that."

"That's a reasonable argument as well." She sighed.

They were quiet for a few minutes as Harry stirred the sauce. He turned and offered her a taste of it, she gave him a thumbs up. "Do you want to go up and eat on the roof, watch the sun set for a change?"

"Sure," she agreed.

He smiled at her and squeezed her gathered their meals and made their way up to the roof.

"Have I ever told you about Sirius' wedding?"

She did a double take. "What, no," she said, puzzled by that segue. "What happened? And where did that question come from" She asked. It was an obvious distraction from her upset but she couldn't bring herself to care as she was anxious to hear his story.

Potter smiled while he was clearly contemplating the memory and rolled his eyes."Well, we were just talking about dramatic wizards and it reminded me."

"Oh Merlin," Hermione huffed, "if he's anything like the Sirius that I knew then I can't even imagine."

Potter smirked. "He wanted to fly in on a hippogriff."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "He did not!"

"Uh-huh," Potter nodded. "Got the idea from a film where the bride rode in on a horse."

"What is with that man and hippogriffs? Every version of him." She murmured, mostly to herself with a shake of her head- half nostalgia, half annoyance. "Not to mention, I can think of a dozen or so problems with that idea, not the least of which is how temperamental hippogriffs can be."

"Right?" Potter laughed. "Anyway, his fiancée put her foot down and said that she wasn't going to be upstaged at her own wedding by an animal. As it turns out, Sirius was only making exorbitant demands so that she'd be so relieved when he wanted to pick out the cake flavor that she'd just allow it."

"No way!" Hermione covered her mouth to conceal a laugh.

"Sirius is very serious about his food," he nodded gravely, "especially cake. Surest way to get a lecture from him is to try and make the argument that cheesecake counts as actual cake."

She snickered.

"He also wanted his elves to wear livery for the occasion, like the fancy 18th century version with wigs."

She dropped her fork. "Potter are you making this up?"

He arched an eyebrow. "You think I could? This is straight out of the twisty mind of Sirius Black."

She narrowed her eyes at him in return. "What was he trying to get out of that, roast beef instead of chicken at dinner?"

"Oh no, he really wanted to do that as part of his ongoing campaign to annoy his fellow purebloods as much as possible, and at every time he has the opportunity."

"What happened?"

"Well, the elves got wind of it and began to panic. They thought he was trying to free them and be extra insulting about it by using fancy clothes to do it. He's been regretting that ever since. Did you know that elves are masters of the guilt trip if they feel that they've been properly insulted?"

"Oh. That's- wow," she laughed.

Potter heightened his voice to a more elf-like octave. "Master Sirius needs to eat his vegetables if he wants cake, unless Master Sirius is going to free Mimsy for worrying about his health, then Master can just get fat."

Hermione smacked a hand over her mouth. "That's just about the best thing I've ever heard," she whispered through her fingers and he snickered appreciatively. There was a few minutes of silence as they continued to eat. "Sirius' wife must be some kind of saint," she eventually concluded.

"Well," Potter smiled wryly, "Celine has some eccentricities of her own. She was my original mind healer, you know?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Thirteen year old me thought she was a nutcase."

Hermione looked at her plate in clear contemplation, "I'm not saying that you were right," she eventually answered, "but I think a lot of thirteen year olds would have felt the same way about a mind healer, no matter their techniques, and that was probably somewhat of a natural reaction," she gave a little shrug.

Potter chuckled. "You're right. I was so dubious, I actually wanted to hate her, but she's lovely."

"So, she convinced you to her way of thinking?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, I'm still very skeptical of many of her practices. But I trust her, and she's a wonderful woman. Not to mention that she gave me a goddaughter, which is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"I- I'm sorry, what? You have a goddaughter?"

"Yes, Astrid is her name. I'm certain I mentioned her."

Hermione licked her lips and swallowed thickly. "Sirius' daughter? Astrid, Sirius' daughter is your goddaughter? You never mentioned that?" She confirmed, recognizing the name, but having never made the connection.

"Yes," he responded, and then he chuckled and perked up rather proudly. "It's great. I even know the names of all her dolls. Also, I'm very good at tea parties."

"I'm sure," she whispered. "I'd like to be able to see that. And I very much would have loved to have somebody like you around during my childhood."

"Oh Hermione," he sighed so quietly that she wasn't even certain she'd heard it.

She took a deep breath. She hadn't meant to make him feel guilty, or at least that hadn't been her original goal. "Don't you miss her, Astrid, I mean?"

There was a long pause and he licked his lips. "Can we take this discussion inside?"

"Sure," she stuttered in surprise, and allowed him to help her gather their dishes in a manner that allowed them to hold hands while they deposited them in the kitchen sink and then made their way to her living room sofa.

"Yes," he responded, taking up the conversation, "but she doesn't need me."

Hermione paused, contemplating her own response before she finally answered. "Perhaps not, she has her mother and father, and if we're going by the strict version of the word need about who she needs in her life then I'm certain she's taken care of. But I'm also certain she's missing you. Who wouldn't?"

He looked away.

And then she asked a question she was certain was going to make him angry: "Why aren't you anxious to get back to them? The Harry that I know should be!"

It was an issue she couldn't let go of. She was coming to care deeply for this Harry and it hurt her that he seemed so flippant about bonds that- she thought- should have been precious to him.

And for the first time since he'd landed in her world, Potter truly lashed out at her.

He huffed and stood up, the sofa actually flew back behind him a few inches with her on it with a mixture of physical and magical power.

"Potter?" She insisted.

"I'm not him! I'm sorry to be such a disappointment to you, but that's just the way that it is!"

"Not who?"

"Your Harry."

"I'm aware of that," she answered quietly.

"Sometimes I'm not sure that you are."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I. Am. Very. Aware. Of. Who. You. Are." She enunciated clearly.

He snorted and shook his head and began pacing. "You expect me to be perfect, to do everything in the right, just like he did."

Hermione felt her hackles rise before she sighed and resisted the urge to reach for him. "I don't expect you to be perfect, just like I never expected him to be." She stood up, changed her mind, and then just glared at him before she fell back onto the sofa.

He followed her and stood in front of her, their knees brushing. "But I'll never live up to him."

"It's not a competition!" She virtually exploded and then reached around with one leg and cut him down at the knee, causing him to fall back onto the sofa and startling him enough to stare at her, frozen as if she'd immobilized him with her wand. She almost laughed, he looked so surprised.

"I just- I did things that he never did."

She blew out several deep breaths as she attempted to gather her thoughts while he opened his mouth.

"Which is something that I'm utterly capable of understanding," she interrupted, before he could anger her further. "Do you honestly think my hands are clean, after everything I've told you? Also, I think it's quite conceited of you to assume you know everything about Harry's life, so just stop it."

He set his jaw. "Fine then, stop comparing me to him!"

"I think I made it quite clear that I know who you are!"

"You just said, and I quote: 'the Harry that I know should be!'"

"Yes! I was talking about you, you total moron! Did you honestly think, after all these months, that I had you confused with my friend?! Because I do know you, do I not?!" She challenged him. She took a deep breath. "The man I've come to know," she tapped his chest, "You're better than spending your life on this road of self hatred. And you're more than this stupid facade you've erected and have obviously been projecting for most of your life. You seem pretty intent on it, but it's frankly infuriating to watch."

He just stared at her, nostrils flaring, and while she wasn't afraid, she was apprehensive. She didn't actually enjoy the idea of upsetting him, but as much as he'd come to admire her, for some reason he couldn't help but bait her. "Well. Tell it like it is, witch."

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," she responded with a put upon shrug.

He snorted. And then he started to laugh out loud. Given her little ninja move he was still gripping one of her hands to try and prevent her from doing something like that again, and he used it to yank her onto his lap. "You know you're fantastic, right?"

"That's how you feel, after that?" He was so close, she couldn't read his expression, but despite the recent argument she trusted him, she was just shocked.

He nuzzled her nose. "Tell me to stop."

She said nothing, nor did she move away and so he covered his mouth with hers.

She sunk into his embrace and he didn't even care how much trouble he knew he'd just gotten himself into.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry to have left you for this long. It was never my intention, especially given the cliff hanger. But my family has been dealt a series of issues (on top of the worst year ever) that just haven't left time for writing. And then, just when I thought we were getting back on our feet, our sweet pup got sick. She's getting better and I think (crosses fingers) I'm crawling back to normality. I just wanted you all to know what was going on. A million thanks for your patience and those of you who have checked on me, I really appreciate it. xoxo

Chapter 10

Jane Austen once wrote: "We are all fools in love."

Of course, Harry had read 'Pride and Prejudice' because, as he'd told Hermione when he'd first met her, his education in the subject of English Literature had been thorough, and Austen was a staple. But, if he was being honest, that novel had annoyed the hell out of him. As Harry saw it, it was a lot of drama, and all for want of a civilized conversation. It was frankly ridiculous.

However, when he'd expressed that particular sentiment to the witch in question when she had wanted to view the newest film version of the book, and she had looked at him like he'd kicked her puppy, he'd quickly backed away from that opinion. Nothing was worth making her look like that.

Still, something about Austen's words had stuck with him. He'd gotten enough examples up close and personal of romantic love growing up: in his dad's grief in the lost love of his wife, and with Sirius' attempts to bury himself in…whoever was available, to admit that there was probably some truth in the idea, and to decide that it was probably best to avoid the whole relationship thing for his own part, lest he himself become a fool.

It hadn't felt all that difficult to decide to avoid the emotion altogether, because Harry thrived on being in control. He enjoyed having to only be accountable to himself and a relationship precluded both of those things. As a result he'd never desired nor sought one out. Before he'd gone dimension jumping he'd told himself that he was at peace with his solitary existence.

He prided himself on his honesty with his lovers in the past; he liked to think he'd treated them well, but made it clear that there would be no interactions, much less feelings, beyond the physical. And beyond those liaisons, as a general rule, he really had no desire to search out something more. He had a time consuming and highly demanding career. He was pleased to only have to worry about himself. It was all very sensible.

But then he'd literally fallen at Hermione's feet—it was the first thing he'd done in this new world. It now seemed utterly appropriate.

However, even when he'd met Hermione and within a matter of moments, had determined that she was special, he'd still compartaminalized her away in that sensible part of his brain: she was smart, intriguing, and beautiful. But she was off limits. If they had met like normal people—which, in this case meant literally any other way than interdimensional travel—he admitted that he would have put aside his issues and pursued her; and that had been a major concession on his part. .

But their circumstances were not normal. And the fact was that his time in her world would come to an end, so he'd packed that thought up into a box and shoved it as far back into his psyche as he could manage and told himself that he'd moved past the entire idea. He was very good at that sort of thing.

But tonight, in the span of only a few moments, Harry realized that Austen had it absolutely right—though he refused to admit that Mr. Darcy was some kind of romantic hero, he himself was a fool. Just because he hadn't given himself permission to love Hermione didn't mean it hadn't happened. Which was probably why they called it 'falling.'

Harry felt like a fool, in the aftermath. A lovestruck fool. Fallen.

They'd been having a relatively lighthearted conversation about his godfather, which accidentally turned into an emotionally wrought one when it became a discussion about his goddaughter—who, as much as he tried to ignore it, he missed like a part of his heart had been ripped away. And then Hermione had gone and called him 'Harry,' and he'd lost control of the reigns he'd held so tightly to for most of his life. And mostly for the past six weeks with her.

The next few minutes—or was it hours?—were the best of Harry's life. Her body melded so sweetly beneath his and he relished the feeling.

"Harry," she breathed, the sound of his name—finally, finally, for him and not for another—jolted him back to the present.

"Hey," he murmured, placing his hands so that he was gently cupping her jawline to get her attention, "look at me, please."

She pulled back looking a little dazed, and blinked at him. "Hmmm?"

"You're really with me, right?"

"I'm here," she said, giving him a sly look, and he knew at once that she understood what he was really asking her, "you're not that good of a kisser that you've rendered me insensible, but I could go back to calling you 'Potter,' if that would reassure you?'"

He bit back a smile."I think I'd rather you not, it kind of made me feel like I was back at Hogwarts."

She took a moment to digest this and then her eyes went wide and then she started to snicker. "McGonagall?" she guessed.

He groaned. "Please never mention that name again when you're on my lap."

"I'd say I'm sorry, but the look on your face was so priceless, it would be a lie. Potter," she added for emphasis. Then she took his earlobe and tweaked it mercilessly.

He groaned again and then encouraged her to rearrange herself until they were seated chest to chest, with her arms around his neck, his around her waist.

"Oh sweetheart," he whispered into her ear, unable to look at her, "what have we done?"

"Something really stupid," she huffed, "though I'm taking comfort in the fact that it wasn't really us but the universe—excuse me—universes to blame."

He smiled against her neck. "Does that really make you feel better?"

"Well, I just accepted this was happening about twenty minutes ago. But, in the end no, probably not." She huffed out a breath. "I could blame you, you reckless adventurer," she accused halfheartedly.

"We could stop, I'd never pressure you." He sighed. "If we're being smart we probably should stop."

"I know that." She gave him one last kiss and climbed off of his lap but kept sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, with him. "You've earned my trust—maybe I gave it more freely than I would have early on because of your resemblance to Harry, but it's been a long time since I felt that way. Moreover, I never wanted to—" she cleared her throat and gestured between them, "with him."

"So you've said. And I believe you," he said and swept a strand of hair out of her face. "My concern is what do we," he gestured between them as she just had, "do now."

"Probably pretend it never happened." She knocked her shoulder against his. "It's the smart thing to do."

He knew the way that Hermione thought well enough, and he was logical enough in his own right to understand her thinking without feeling insulted, though it hurt. His hands already itched to touch her again. Still, that logical side warned him that no good could come from them indulging their desires. Though he couldn't help but ask: "Are you sure?"

"Not at all. Damn my stupid brain."

That startled a laugh out of him.

She blindly grasped for his hand and he took it, intertwining their fingers. "I'm sorry, I know how that might have sounded. It's not that I don't want to, in another world..."

"It's okay," he cleared his throat, "I understand. In another world," he repeated, laughing bitterly. "Hell of a relationship obstacle."

But because she was Hermione, she felt the need to explain herself anyway. She took a deep breath." I care for you a lot. A lot. But I don't think I could be with you and just let you go. Even if it was just a physical relationship. I'm already too attached to you and I'm just not sure that I'm built for casual sex anyway. I think it might be a better idea if we just—maintain our distance."

"Okay," he answered quietly, it was what he had expected, and he thought that it very well might be the wisest course of action.

"I should go to bed," she murmured, kissing his forehead as she stood up. "I wish things were different."

That was what brought him up short and he clasped her hand in his, entwining their fingers once again, preventing her from walking away. She turned, the expression on her face so innocent, so earnest, he didn't know if he should say what he'd intended, or rather just shut his mouth. But, in the end, he was a selfish man and in the mere seconds since she'd moved away from his body he'd realized that he was unwilling to just let her walk away, not without telling her how he really felt. He kept tugging on her hand until she met his eyes.

He took a deep breath. "I accept your choices, so if yours are to stay away from me, I understand and we will never speak of this again. I will never pressure you no matter how long I end up being here. But I just wanted you to know that anything that happened between us, I would never consider to be casual. It might be short-lived, but not casual. And I think it might be one of those once in a lifetime things. So, I just wanted you to give that a thought."

He got up and started to walk to the bathroom before he broke his promise and reached for her again when she called out to him. "Why would you suscept yourself to that kind of heartbreak?"

He turned and smiled at her sadly. "You don't think leaving you is going to leave me heartbroken either way? I'd selfishly like to have some real intimate moments with you, but if I don't, I'll be grateful just to have had this time with you. It's your decision what that looks like."

0000000000

Hermione practically ran to her bedroom before she could follow the man whom she felt herself desperately wanting and doing something without properly considering it. Which was practically the story of her life: following another version of the same man and rarely considering the repercussions beforehand.

Irony of ironies, Potter—Harry—had made her more cautious.

She was already considering a position at several research institutes outside of Britain at his suggestion and truly thinking about the course her life choices were on for the first time in a long time. Their worlds were apparently not so different that he was incapable of making such suggestions. And he reminded her that she had options.

But more than that, it meant so much to her that this man who had only known her for a matter of months valued her experience and intelligence so highly, and avidly advised her to seek more knowledge. That had always been a stumbling block for her. Even the idea of seeking out such different opportunities had felt like an impossibility to her. Magical Britain was pretty insular, all of her friends had simply not understood, or had even been outright insulted when she'd asked 'but isn't there something more than Hogwarts?''

As it turned out, there had been, but the information had come a little late for her as she'd needed a job to support herself after Hogwarts when her parents had wanted little to do with her, too late to seek a scholarship or a sponsor. Once she'd inherited Harry's money, well, she could now accept that she'd been too depressed to do anything for herself with it, even if she'd technically stuck to the terms of his will and not spent it on others either.

And that made her feel more than a little shameful. He had known her well enough to order her not to give away her inheritance. He had loved her enough to use the opportunity to give her the means to live her life as she so chose. He had argued about it enough with her in life but she'd been too proud to accept his help, and now she'd, so far, squandered the opportunity after his death.

She squirmed underneath her duvet and sheets and it would have been less annoying if she hadn't known what was bothering her. Could she live with herself, squandering another sort of opportunity and one that her heart longed for, perhaps more than it ever had?

She tossed and she turned, but she was a Gryffindor, and around three in the morning she finally rose and made her way to him.

She paused at the edge of the transfigured sofa which had become his regular bed, trying to decide if she should wake him or be bold enough to crawl in with him, when he suddenly turned over, staring up at her with those green eyes that she'd always loved. But also so different, it was a comfort and a trial.

The very real man in question quirked a brow at her, looking both amused and cautious. "Were you honestly under the impression that you could sneak up on me?"

"Well, I wasn't actually trying to sneak," she defended, wrinkling her nose at the last word. "Or, I guess I was. But I wasn't trying to hurt you or anything. I just didn't want to wake you."

That made him laugh and he held his arms out for her. "Unless I'm very much misinterpreting this, come here?"

"No," she climbed in and wriggled against him, then pressed her face against his neck. "This is okay?"

"This is very okay. But I have to ask." He left a sweet kiss against her temple. "What changed your mind?"

"The universe. Or maybe the universes. Or whatever brought you here."

He wrapped his arms around her, but as he did so he noticed that she hadn't answered the question. "Hermione, what does that mean?"

She sighed. "I decided that if I'm going to regret something it should be being with you, rather than not being with you. I know something about regrets. So, I'm here. If you'll have me. For long as we have each other."

He only nodded against the crown of her head, she smiled against his chest,and gave into the madness, at least for the night, while they pretended that all would be well.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was heavily influenced by the TV show, "Fringe." Not so much the plot, but many of the references and if you're familiar, you'll know what I mean, and I want to give credit where credit is due. (Like the opening quote.) This is something different for me. I really hope you guys enjoy it!


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